From Kansas Wheat
The 2026 Wheat Quality Council’s Hard Winter Wheat Tour across Kansas wrapped up on May 14th. During the three days of wheat scouting, tour participants traveled six routes from Manhattan to Colby to Wichita and back to Manhattan.
The three-day average yield for the fields that were calculated was 38.9 bushels per acre. An estimated 7.0 million acres of wheat were planted in the fall, and USDA NASS estimates 5.8 million acres will be harvested this summer. What Mother Nature has in store for the wheat crop still remains to be seen, but the tour captures a moment in time for the yield potential for fields across the state.
The official tour projection for total production of wheat to be harvested in Kansas is 218 million bushels. This number is the average of estimated predictions from tour participants who gathered information from 394 fields across the state. Based on May 1 conditions, NASS predicted the crop to be slightly lower at 214.6 million bushels, with a yield of 37 bushels per acre.
These fields are still two to eight weeks from harvest. A lot can happen during that time to affect final yields and production.
The theme of this year’s tour has been drought with some variability. Scouts encountered differences in wheat conditions across Kansas and parts of surrounding states. Some fields showed severe drought stress, freeze damage and wheat streak mosaic virus with yield potential low enough to warrant abandonment. While other fields were dry they still appeared capable of producing respectable yields. In many cases, differences in moisture conservation, cropping history and disease pressure created sharp contrasts from one field to the next, highlighting how uneven conditions have been throughout the 2026 growing season.
The tour is sponsored by the Wheat Quality Council, which is a coordinated effort by breeders, producers and processors to improve wheat and flour quality. There are several goals of the tour. The first is for participants to make connections within the wheat industry. Another is to describe the wheat at the current point in time, not knowing what will happen over the next few weeks. A third goal is to highlight the agriculture industry.
This year’s tour included producers, members of the grain trade, millers, bakers, media, university professionals and others involved in the industry. This included flour millers and industry professionals from domestic and international mills and bakeries. U.S. Wheat Associates sponsored five participants who work in flour mills in Central and South America.
These grain buyers, flour millers and quality managers were from Mexico, Panama and Venezuela. Connecting these customers with Kansas wheat farmers continues to be a highlight of the tour each year.