The USDA has increased its expectations for this year’s winter wheat crop.
As of June 1st, winter wheat production is projected 1.136 billion bushels, up 1% from the May guess and 3% from 2022, with an average yield of 44.9 bushels per acre, 0.2 bushels higher than a month ago, but 2.1 bushels lower than a year ago. Planted area is expected to be 25.286 million acres.
The total includes 2% month-to-month jump in the hard red winter estimate to 525.387 million bushels, which canceled out 1% declines for both soft red winter and white winter, now seen at 401.83 million and 209.248 million bushels, respectively, and might be a sign that late season rainfall in the central and southern Plains did help the crop at least somewhat.