E195: The Promising 2024 Winter Wheat Tour

American wheat watchers descended on Kansas from May 14th to May 16th this year to participate in the Wheat Quality Council’s 2024 crop tour. The three day scouting trip took dozens on an arc across the state, from Manhattan, Colby, Wichita, and countless road-side stops in between. In the end, analysts recorded a predicted yield in the state that, though a bit short of spectacular, will likely be much better than the crop fared in 2023. Luckily for us, DTN Crops Editor Jason Jenkins was on the tour, and brought us first hand information about what he saw on the ground across the Southern States. Today we’ll talk about the yield results from different regions, the disease pressure in the fields and how farmers might be making decisions about final applications, and compare the results of the tour to what USDA and others are predicting the final harvest will look like. Then, we’ll talk about existing variability and how weather in the next few weeks might continue to alter the fate of this year’s crop. We’ll also discuss broader pest pressures, the protein outlook, and the durability of modern seed varieties.