Rippey: Spring Wheat Crop Pretty Bleak

When it comes to the most recent spring wheat conditions, growers continue to struggle nationwide.

"We appear to have hit bottom for the spring wheat condition," said USDA Meteorologist Brad Rippey. "Current numbers, though, still pretty bleak: 10% of the crop rated good to excellent, 64% rated very poor to poor. A week ago those numbers were 9% and 66% respectively."

How does those figures compare to what growers reported last year.

"When those numbers were just about flipped. 74% of the crop was rated very good to excellent. Just 5% very poor to poor on August of 2020."

And once again, some of the poorest conditions are right here in the Pacific Northwest, with 90% of Washington's crop rated very poor to poor, and not far behind is Montana at 85%. Rippey added drought has also impacted the harvest itself.

On August 1st, 17% of the crop has already been cut. The normal harvest progress for August is 8%. Last year at this time we just had 4% of the crop cut on that date."

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