This article was originally posted at 12:33 p.m. CDT on Thursday, May 14. It was last updated with additional information at 4:59 p.m. CDT on Thursday, May 14.

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MANHATTAN, Kan. (DTN) -- Drought. Freeze. Disease. Hail. Scorching temperatures. High winds. This year's hard red winter wheat crop has endured them all -- and is still producing grain, albeit at a reduced yield.

On the third and final day of the Wheat Quality Council's 2026 Hard Winter Wheat Tour, crop scouts determined that while this year's crop won't set any records, that's a good thing. The consensus among attendees was that while things could be better, they could also be much worse.

Scouting on Day 3 of the tour resulted in an average yield of 39.7 bushels per acre (bpa), nominally the highest average of the week. Overall, after scouting 394 fields across the state -- and some into neighboring Nebraska and Oklahoma -- the total weighted average yield for the tour was estimated at 38.9 bpa, a 26.6% decrease from 2025 and the third time in the past five years that the average was below 40 bpa.

Yet, despite the depressed average, tour participants were optimistic that the Kansas wheat crop would outperform USDA estimates. The group predicted a total harvest of 218 million bushels, 3.4 million bushels more than the 214.6 million bushels forecast by USDA's National Agricultural Statistics Service, based on May 1 conditions.

USDA forecasts an average yield in Kansas of 37.0 bpa, down 13 bushels from 2025 and also 1.9 bpa less than predicted by the wheat tour. Where Kansas wheat and the entire hard red winter wheat crop will ultimately finish depends largely on weather conditions in the next few weeks.

"When we do these crop estimates, the old adage is there's a lot of things that are going to happen to this crop before it gets harvested -- and none of them are good," said Justin Gilpin, CEO of Kansas Wheat. "I think this crop is in that same situation. Because of the (drought) stress, we saw a lot of short wheat that's headed out. And with the high temperatures forecast and low tiller counts, there's potential for some smaller kernels or some test weight issues that none of us like to see."

With the advanced crop development, he said the heat is shutting the wheat down already. Some fields do have some yield potential remaining, but that will fade quickly in the face of 95-degree-Fahrenheit days and 30- to 40-mph winds.

"It's going to be one of those years that when farmers get in the field to start harvest, they're going to have to pay extra special attention on how the adjustments are on the combine," he said. "I would anticipate we'll have combines running in the state of Kansas prior to Memorial Day."

Gilpin noted that every crop has its own story to tell, and this year was getting a lot of attention because of the drought stress that had the crop maturing two to three weeks ahead of normal -- along with freeze events that further took yield off the top.

"The tour probably confirmed a lot of what was being reported about the challenges that the entire 2026 hard red winter wheat is facing across the Great Plains," he added. "This will go down as one of the lowest production years in the United States in the past several decades."

INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE

Raising a wheat crop under the constraints of drought is not exclusive to the United States. Similar challenges exist around the globe, including Australia, where John Kirkegaard is a farming systems research agronomist for that nation's national science agency, CSIRO. He is currently spending six months serving as the Fulbright Distinguished Chair at Kansas State University and participated in the wheat tour.

"I'm not sure that anything quite like that exists in Australia, where you have everybody from end-users, millers, bakers, researchers, farmers, all coming together for a pretty intensive three-day kind of look at the crop," said Kirkegaard of the Wheat Quality Council's annual event. "That's something I'll take back to our grains industry in Australia."

He noted that in Australia, national wheat yield averages fall in the 38-bushel range annually. Wheat there faces similar challenges.

"It's getting hotter and drier in Australia, as well, and we're still managing to find combinations of management and new varieties that are keeping the yields and the quality going up," Kirkegaard said. "I would say keep supporting research, keep up the interdisciplinary work with breeders, disease people, quality people, agronomy -- understanding the system and looking at where you can tweak the system in many different ways to sort of achieve a goal is, I think, the secret."

Gilpin agreed.

"Twenty years ago, some of these varieties wouldn't be hanging on like we're seeing. Some of the management practices farmers were using 20 years ago today wouldn't have been helping them like they are," he said. "I think that's a real testament to the investment and the work that wheat researchers are putting into breeding programs.

"That investment that farmers are making -- whether it's through their checkoff programs or if it's through seed royalties with their private and public-private seed partner relationships -- those investments are paying dividends."

Read more about this year's Hard Winter Wheat Tour from DTN:

Tour preview: https://www.dtnpf.com/…

Day 1 report: https://www.dtnpf.com/…

Day 2 report: https://www.dtnpf.com/…

Jason Jenkins can be reached at jason.jenkins@dtn.com

Follow him on social platform X @JasonJenkinsDTN

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