Winter wheat

USDA meteorologist Brad Rippey has the latest outlook for the nation's winter wheat crop. We continue to see cool weather slowing overall development of the crop. So it is running a few days behind schedule. Five year average is forty six percent. Last year at this time, we were forty two percent headed. We just saw a one point change in the good to excellent ratings, a one point change in the very poor to poor ratings. So not much overall change. We are now at forty nine percent. Good to excellent. Eighteen percent, very poor to poor. That's down a point on the national level. Very little change if you break it down a little bit more by state. The biggest problems are showing up in some of the drought areas. We are starting to see our first heading moving into some of the northern states like Washington State, three percent headed, but even that's behind the five year average of nine percent. So on the national level, very little change if you break it down a little bit more by state. The biggest problems are showing up in some of the drought areas, Oregon. Forty two percent of the crop now rated very poor to poor. That's up from thirty five percent a week ago. We continue to see at least one fifth of the crop rated very poor to poor in states like Colorado at thirty percent, very poor to poor Montana. Twenty three percent. Other than that, the crop looking reasonably good at this point.