Seeding conditions look good for U.S. winter wheat crop

is white on the Sept. 30 U.S. Drought Monitor map, indicating no drought. The last time the map looked like that was in 2019. Farmers had planted about one-third of the intended 2026 winter wheat acreage by Sept. 28. A more current estimate is unavailable due to the government shutdown in the U.S. Lerner said central and south-central Oklahoma and north-central Texas could use some more rain. As well, he noted that the moisture profile in other states might not be as picture perfect as it appears on the maps because there has been some evaporation with temperatures reaching the upper 20s and low 30s C in recent weeks. “But the situation relative to a lot of years is really pretty good,” he said. Conditions are particularly favourable in Kansas, the top HRWW producer, according to NASA’s satellite-based groundwater and soil moisture map. It shows almost all of central and western Kansas was in the 70 to 98 percentile for root zone wetness as of the end of September. The root zone ...