HRW crop conditions continue to erode

The “good” to “excellent” ratings for HRW wheat dropped to 26% for Kansas (down four points from the end of January), 9% for Oklahoma (down seven points) and 24% for South Dakota (down seven points). Nebraska’s “good” to “excellent” rating was unchanged at 36%. The “good” to “excellent” ratings improved to 10% in Texas (up three points), 21% in Montana (up seven points) and 21% in Colorado (up one point).

When the individual state crop ratings are plugged into the weighted Pro Farmer Crop Condition Index (CCI; 0 to 500 point scale, with 500 being perfect), the HRW crop plunged to a rating of 259.0, down 11.4 points from the end of January and 65.4 points below the end of November. At the current level, the CCI rating would be 71.3 points below the five-year average for the beginning of April when USDA starts releasing weekly national crop condition ratings.