Wheat Tour 2026, Day 1

About 60 people from 16 U.S. states and three countries traveled in 17 cars on six routes between Manhattan and Colby, Kansas, Tuesday, stopping at wheat fields every 15-20 miles along the routes, as part of the Wheat Quality Council’s 68th Annual Hard Red Winter Wheat Evaluation Tour.

These tour participants included flour millers and industry professionals from domestic and international mills. U.S. Wheat Associates sponsored four participants who work in flour mills in Central and South America. These grain buyers, flour millers and quality managers were from Mexico, Panama and Venezuela. Several had the opportunity to meet and ask questions of farmers while evaluating a field and visit their farms where they were able to hear their Kansas wheat story.

Well over half of the attendees were first-time participants. They were shown how to take yield measurements from tour alumni, using the formula provided by USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS). This formula is based on 2015-2025 Kansas wheat objective yield data. Farmers can calculate their own field estimates using the same formula with instructions at kswheat.com.

Every tour participant makes yield calculations at each stop based on three to four different area samplings per field. These individual estimates are averaged with the rest of their route mates and eventually added to a formula that produces a final yield estimate for the areas along the routes. While yields tend to be the spotlight of the Wheat Quality Tour, the real benefit is the ability to network among the ‘grain chain.’ This tour gives Kansas farmers the chance to interact with their customers around the globe, on the tour, as well as at the #wheattour26 hashtag.

Tuesday’s cars of wheat tour scouts made 187 stops at wheat fields across north central, central and northwest Kansas, and into southern counties in Nebraska. They met Tuesday evening at Frahm Farmland in Colby, where they discussed what they had seen during the day and heard from an Extension expert panel including Romulo Lollato, Jeanne Falk Jones and Lucas Haag. Participants reported seeing severe drought stress, freeze damage and early signs of wheat streak mosaic virus complex.

The calculated yield is based on what scouts saw at this point in time. The calculated yield from all cars was 38.3 bushels per acre; however, the northern routes estimated 39.2 bushels per acre, while the southern routes estimated 36 bushels per acre. Day 2 of the tour will travel through southwest and south central Kansas.

Statewide, based on May 1 conditions, Kansas’ 2026 winter wheat crop is forecast at 214.6 million bushels, according to NASS. Average yield is forecast at 37 bushels per acre. Acreage to be harvested for grain is estimated at 5.8 million acres of the 7.0 million acres planted last fall.

For the week ending May 11, 2026, according to NASS, Kansas winter wheat condition rated 21% very poor, 30% poor, 32% fair, 16% good and 1% excellent. Winter wheat headed was 86%, ahead of 67% last year, and well ahead of 49% for the five-year average.

In addition to Kansas reports, scouts from Nebraska and Colorado met the group in Colby to give reports from their states.

Royce Schaneman from the Nebraska Wheat Board reported that the Nebraska crop is estimated at 16.2 million bushels. Schaneman reported good establishment of the wheat crop in the fall, then moisture diminished, resulting in a drought stricken crop with heavy abandonment throughout the state. Yield is estimated at 28 bushels per acre.

A report from Colorado estimated the crop at 33.6 million bushels, based on a yield of 21 bushels per acre and 1.87 million acres planted.

These estimates are for this year’s hard winter wheat crop during this current snapshot in time.

Wheat Tour 2026 continues Wednesday with six routes between Colby and Wichita, Kansas.

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