Frigid temperatures thus far this winter have likely killed as much as 15% of the winter wheat crop in parts of the U.S. Plains and Midwest. According to the Commodity Weather Group (CWG), this is an ominous sign for U.S. wheat production.
A blast of Arctic air has covered much of the United States in recent weeks, sending temperatures plunging across key wheat areas that have seen limited snowfall this winter.
Without that protective layer of snow, winter wheat was vulnerable to freeze damage or “winterkill” as temperatures fell to or below minus 5 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 21 Celsius), said Joe Woznicki, an agricultural meteorologist with the CWG.
Those conditions impacted about 65% of the nation’s total hard red winter wheat belt from Montana down through northern Texas, including parts of top producer Kansas. The polar vortex may also have affected about 35% of the soft red winter wheat belt, including Illinois, Indiana, southern Michigan and Ohio.
Hard red winter wheat is grown in the Plains and used to make bread. Soft red winter wheat is produced in the Midwest and used in cookies and snack foods.
“If all the wheat was well-established, you would expect losses of about 10% in spots that saw winterkill,” Woznicki said, cautioning that “these are very rough estimates.”
Losses might be closer to 15% in areas where wheat crops were poorly established or where dry soils left plants more vulnerable to the cold, he said.
How much crop ultimately will be lost is unknown. Freeze injury to winter wheat is notoriously difficult to assess until dormant crops resume growth in the spring.
But using last year’s production figures for wheat harvested in 2024 as an estimate, a 10% loss on 65% of the hard red winter acreage works out to 52 million bushels, or 6.7% of the crop, CWG said.
A 10% loss on 35% of the soft red wheat acreage would be 12 million bushels, or 3.5% of production.
U.S. farmers planted 34.1 million acres of winter wheat for harvest in 2025, up 2% from the prior year. The United States is the world’s No. 5 wheat exporter.
EDITOR’S TAKE:
Depending on the severity of winterkill, the losses to the total crop could be significant. Such losses could also have a negative impact on income depending on what happens to prices as harvest approaches. Wheat growers have had a difficult time of things for the past several years until the Ukraine/Soviet war offered an opportunity for greater exports and higher prices. That gain could be at risk with the extreme winter weather’s impact on the 2025 crop. We will keep our eye on the outcome as the growing season progresses. In the meantime, be sure to keep your inventory prominently displayed on AgTruckTrader.com®. It might also be a great time to offer service specials to those wheat farmers in your area.
