COLORADO HIGHLIGHTS

Winter wheat production in Colorado, based on conditions as of May 1, 2020, is forecast at 61.05 million bushels, according to the May 1 Agricultural Yield Survey conducted by the Mountain Regional Field Office of the National Agricultural Statistics Service, USDA. This forecast is 38 percent below last year’s production of 98.00 million bushels and 13 percent below the 70.20 million bushel crop produced two years ago.

Acreage for harvest, forecast at 1.65 million acres, is 350,000 acres less than a year ago. If realized, this will be the lowest winter wheat harvested acreage since 2013 when 1.63 million acres were harvested.

Average yield is forecast at 37.0 bushels per acre, down 12.0 bushels per acre from last year’s yield. Final yield will largely be determined by the combination of moisture and temperature conditions during May and June.

As of May 3, Colorado’s winter wheat crop condition was rated 16 percent very poor, 18 percent poor, 28 percent fair, 35 percent good, and 3 percent excellent, compared with 2 percent poor, 25 percent fair, 59 percent good, and 14 percent excellent last year.

Hay stocks on Colorado farms and ranches as of May 1, 2020 totaled 410,000 tons, up 37 percent from stocks of 300,000 tons on hand last year.

Hay production for 2019 was 4.05 million tons, 12 percent higher than 2018 production. Disappearance from December 1, 2019 to May 1, 2020 was 1.59 million tons, compared with 1.45 million tons the same period a year earlier.

UNITED STATES HIGHLIGHTS

Winter wheat production is forecast at 1.25 billion bushels, down 4 percent from 2019. As of May 1, the United States yield is forecast at 51.7 bushels per acre, down 1.9 bushels from last year’s average yield of 53.6 bushels per acre.

Hard Red Winter production, at 733 million bushels, is down 12 percent from a year ago. Soft Red Winter, at 298 million bushels, is up 24 percent from 2019. White Winter, at 224 million bushels, is down 3 percent from last year. Of the White Winter production, 16.2 million bushels are Hard White and 207 million bushels are Soft White.

All hay stored on United States farms as of May 1, 2020 totaled 20.4 million tons, up 37 percent from May 1, 2019, which were the second lowest since records began in 1950. Disappearance from December 1, 2019 - May 1, 2020 totaled 64.1 million tons, down less than 1 percent from the same period a year earlier.