Winter wheat condition ratings are dropping fast.

Gary Crawford and USDA meteorologist, Brad Rippey.

Transcript

Wheat prices Monday gained from 7 cents to 20 cents, partly due to the decline in overall winter wheat condition.

Pretty sharp decline at that.

USDA meteorologist Brad Rippey says the markets probably anticipated what USDA was going to say in its late afternoon crop progress report.

Nationally, USDA rating the winter wheat crop at 50 percent good to excellent.

That is down five percentage points from a week ago. 16 percent rated very poor to poor.

That is up three points from last week's 13 percent.

It's all about dryness, especially in parts of Kansas, where just a week ago 43 percent of that state's crop was rated good to excellent.

That is down to 36 percent this week.

A week ago, Kansas wheat 19 percent very poor to poor.

That has jumped to 26 percent.

So Brad Rippey says condition ratings are down in most winter wheat areas.

Big concern for this crop.

Big concern, Gary Crawford for the U.S. Department of Agriculture.