The winter wheat crop has faced a barrage of adverse weather this growing season, from a surprisingly warmer and much drier-than-usual winter to more recent late-season frosts and freezes. When a crop is confronted with this many headwinds, conversations on potential yield losses shift to include potentially abandoning a crop entirely.
The Crop Progress and Condition survey provides information on the well being of winter wheat going back to 1986 and offers a good benchmark to compare current conditions to the past. We examined the Good to Excellent ratings in the current week and compared that to the final planted acres that were not harvested for grain.
The results indicate that the current good-to-excellent ratings of 31% would result in 25.2%, or 8.16 million acres, not being harvested. That would be the fourth largest percentage of abandonment since Crop Condition data began in 1986. Two of the three years that saw a higher percentage of abandonment have occurred in recent history, with 2022 and 2023 notching 29.5% and 33.1%, respectively. Both years saw good-to-excellent ratings at 29% during the first week of May, just below the current level. For comparison, the average percent of abandonment since 1986 is 20.3%.
While the historic wheat rally of 2022 was largely driven by the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, a repeat of similar abandonment and possibly yields in 2026 would suggest that this weather market still has room to run to the upside if the potential for lower production is realized to its full extent.
Related: Pro Farmer Crop Condition Index shows further deterioration for HRW wheat