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Drought dries up U.S. spring wheat crop

The executive director of Minnesota Wheat says the drought had a dramatic impact on this year’s spring wheat crop.

Charlie Vogel tells Brownfield he expects yields in his state to be about 25 percent below trendline.

“And then as you go west, it gets worse.”

He says for all the struggles, Minnesota’s spring wheat crop is as good as it gets this year.

“As you get into North Dakota it gets worse, Montana is worse yet. And then you get into Washington and they have the lowest production since the 60’s.”

USDA’s most recent guess for spring wheat was ahead of harvest in July at 345 million bushels, more than 40 percent lower than a year ago.