Winter wheat production in Colorado, based on conditions as of May 1, 2024, is forecast at 81.40 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 9 percent above last year’s production of 74.62 million bushels, and 128 percent above the 35.75-million-bushel crop produced two years ago. Harvested area, forecast at 1.85 million acres, is 30,000 acres, or 2 percent, above last year. Average yield is forecast at 44.0 bushels per acre, up 3.0 bushels from last year’s final yield.

As of April 28, Colorado’s winter wheat crop condition was rated 10 percent very poor, 13 percent poor, 31 percent fair, 44 percent good, and 2 percent excellent, compared with 10 percent very poor, 27 percent poor, 35 percent fair, 24 percent good, and 4 percent excellent last year.

Hay stocks on Colorado farms and ranches as of May 1, 2024, totaled 800,000 tons, an increase of 371 percent from record low stocks of 170,000 tons on hand last year. Hay production for 2023 totaled 3.12 million tons, 14 percent higher than the record low production in 2022. Disappearance from December 1, 2023 – May 1, 2024, was 850,000 tons, compared with 1.18 million tons during the same period a year earlier.