Hot, dry conditions have caused challenges for other crops across the Midwest this summer, but many farmers raised a generally good wheat crop. USDA numbers show it was the largest soft red winter wheat crop in nine years.
John Howell farms in Monroe County, Illinois, near St. Louis, and serves as vice president of the Illinois Wheat Growers Association. He says it was a very good year for wheat in his area.
“Generally speaking, for myself and a lot of people that I know, really good wheat yields,” he says. “Some people had record yields. Quality and grain test weight were good as well.”
Howell says harvest was slightly delayed as the wheat took a little longer maturing, but then there was a fairly good weather window. He says the weather allowed for a strong year overall.
“We had a relatively dry spring, which obviously wheat kind of likes that,” he says. “It doesn’t like overly wet springs.”
Howell says the crop also had favorable conditions for grain fill.
“It was a mild May,” he says. “We had an excellent pollination window, so we filled grain really well.”
Howell says wheat acres were up in Illinois, and that more farmers seem to be looking to actively manage their wheat crop and chase higher yields. Some are putting time into finding the optimal seeding rate and using fungicide.
“Wheat has kind of been that crop that we’ve learned to manage better,” he says.
Danny Kuenzel, who farms in east central Missouri, says it was a good year for wheat in his area.
“Growers reported some good yields and some having test weight of 63 to 64,” he says.
Charlie Ebbesmeyer, who farms in central Missouri, says wheat yields varied in his area as the region battled drought, but “grain quality and test weight seem to be good.”
Aaron Hunsinger works for BASF Smart Farming, covering White, Hamilton, Gallatin and Wayne counties in southern Illinois. He says an annual wheat tour projected some intensively managed fields to hit 130 or 140 bushels per acre, and many did reach that. Even for wheat fields that did not reach those heights, it was overall a very productive year.
“The wheat was very good around here,” Hunsinger says.
He says weather conditions were generally favorable for wheat, which he says handles the warmer and drier conditions well, up to a point. Also, the harvest window was fairly clear.
“It wasn’t too wet at harvest time,” Hunsinger says.
Some rains did come through after wheat harvest that he says softened up the ground and helped with double-crop soybean planting and emergence.
Hunsinger says wheat acreage was up in his area, although not dramatically.
“A little more than the year before,” he says. “Not as much as I thought it would be with the price it was last year.”
Hunsinger says more farmers seem to be considering wheat as an option and looking at ways to invest in it for higher yields, especially with double- crop soybeans faring fairly well the last couple of summers.
“I think a lot more people are excited about wheat,” he says.
According to the USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service, this was the largest soft red winter wheat crop in nine years. The 2023 crop totaled 401.8 million bushels, the highest since 454.5 million bushels in 2014.
This year’s total was also significantly higher than recent years, which saw 336.5 million bushels of soft red winter wheat in 2022, 360.7 million bushels in 2021 and 266.2 million bushels in 2020.
In over 100 years of USDA data, the largest soft red winter wheat crop ever harvested remains the massive 1981 wheat crop, which was 678.0 million bushels. The second biggest on record is the 2008 crop, which was 618.1 million bushels.
