KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI, US — When scouts fan out across North Dakota fields in the third week of July, they will be looking to confirm or moderate expectations of a high-yielding spring wheat crop forecast this month by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA).

The USDA on July 12 forecast production of spring wheat other than durum in the United States this year at 577.84 million bushels, up 72.94 million bushels, or 14%, from 504.9 million bushels in 2023. The forecast was the Department’s first survey-based estimate of the season for spring wheat. If the forecast holds, the 2024 other spring wheat crop would be the largest since 587.505 million bushels in 2020 and would compare favorably with 493 million bushels as the recent five-year average outturn. 

The projection slightly topped pre-report trade expectations but comported with a larger planted acreage, said Erin Nazetta, an agriculture research analyst with Broadview Capital Holdings, St. Louis, Missouri, US.

“At this stage, I don’t necessarily question USDA’s number too much, but, along with higher acreage, it provides a baseline to then really focus on crop conditions, how good the yield potentially could be,” she said. 

By class, hard red spring wheat production was forecast at 532.447 million bushels, up 64.379 million bushels, or 14%, from 468.068 million bushels in 2023. The recent five-year average hard red spring wheat outturn was around 453 million bushels. Hard white spring wheat production was forecast at 10.336 million bushels, up 1.591 million bushels, or 18%, from 8.745 million bushels a year ago. Soft white spring wheat production was estimated at 35.057 million bushels, up 6.97 million bushels, or 25%, from 28.087 million bushels in 2023.

The larger crop is aligned with a big improvement in US wheat supplies thanks to a larger hard red winter wheat harvest, and will help the global balance sheet, Nazetta said. 

“A larger spring wheat crop is coming in a year when the record crop we saw from Russia last season is not going to be the case this year, so having some cushion to global wheat supplies through a larger US crop will be beneficial to the major exporter balance sheet,” she said. “Fundamentally at the global level, we’re not at a very burdensome level in terms of overall wheat supplies. We are in a period of harvest pressure on prices as a lot of the Northern Hemisphere crops are being moved from the fields to export channels, pressuring prices or keeping them depressed with a lower floor from corn values going down. But globally, having a bigger supply from the US is probably what the balance sheet needs this year.” 

North Dakota spring wheat other than durum production in 2024 was forecast at 305.76 million bushels, up 38.040 million bushels, or 14%, from 267.72 million bushels in 2023. It was forecast to be the largest North Dakota crop since 318.01 million bushels in 2018 and the fourth-largest crop for the state in records dating to 1919. The record-large North Dakota spring wheat outturn was 382.2 million bushels in 1992.

The annual Hard Spring Wheat & Durum Tour is planned for July 22-25 by the Wheat Quality Council and its executive vice president, Dave Green.

“It looks to be a big crop, so on the tour we’ll be looking to confirm that or put a halt to those ideas,” Green said. “The other thing is that wheat industry leadership in the Northern Plains are worried about diseases. When you get wheat wet for too long, and there’s a lot of those areas this year, there’s a lot of talk about ‘have they done enough spraying, is it working, or do we have a lot of these diseases we don’t like to see.’”

There were no expectations of excessive weed or pest pressures, he said, noting that grasshoppers, spotted in abundance in some fields on the 2022 and 2023 wheat tours, don’t reproduce as well as in the dry, drought years. 

The USDA on July 12 also forecast durum wheat production in the United States in 2024 at 89.288 million bushels, up 29.959 million bushels, or 50%, from 59.329 million bushels in 2023. The durum crop was forecast to be the largest since 103.914 million bushels in 2016 and the second largest since 2010. The recent five-year average durum outturn was around 57 million bushels. The North Dakota durum crop was forecast at 53.36 million bushels, which would be the state’s largest outturn since 58.118 million bushels in 2016 and the second-largest crop since 2010.

“For durum, farmers obviously had an inkling they needed to plant more,” Green said. “And the North Dakota Wheat Commission this week says the tour will see more durum fields than normal. Overall, in the Northern Plains, Montana is the only state that’s closer to normal precipitation. These other states, South Dakota, North Dakota, Minnesota are really wet compared to Montana.”

The USDA’s review of the July 9 US Drought Monitor indicated 24% of Montana durum and 26% of Montana spring wheat was growing in drought, compared with 3% and 1%, respectively, in North Dakota. 

For millers, bakers and others in the wheat market, global production numbers and the US corn crop size are ones to watch, Nazetta said.

“The market is seeing the improved conditions, first with the HRW crop and now with the spring crop, things are looking good,” she said. “Beyond wheat, corn, with higher acres and improved crop conditions, lowering the floor price under wheat. Looking at corn and how the overall grain supply is improving with the better US corn crop than was expected only a few months ago. US wheat for sure is improved year-over-year. We still need to watch the European crop and the Russian crop, both expected to be smaller year-over-year despite the fact they are big crops and we are going through harvest pressure. The market will try to dial in what the final crop size is going to look like out of the EU and Black Sea regions and how that may impact the overall demand and price environment for US wheat.”

About 45 scouts from across the wheat value chain, plus representatives from the government, academia and the media, are registered to attend the annual spring wheat tour, down 18% from 2023.