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The Wheat Tour

Every year at this time members and traders at the Kansas City Board of Trade take a trip to western Kansas to tour the winter wheat crop.
They go into fields, check the state of the crop and estimate how many bushels per acre can be expected from this year's crop.

They returned a couple of days ago. It appears the crop is in pretty good condition, due to good moisture during the fall & early winter. The recent freezes did little damage. There is one problem developing. The crop needs one more good rain to finish off the season. The weird pattern we have been in has also been affecting western Kansas. Since March 1st Dodge City & Wichita are 3" below average rainfall. They are drying out fast, just like Kansas City.

Well, there may be some hope in 6-9 days. Our long range data the last 24 hours is showing the potential of a slow-moving storm at the end of next week. This type of storm, this time of year could bring great rains to the plains. See the forecast rainfall map below from our GFS model for May 11-14.

CLICK TO ENLARGE

Posted by at May 6, 2005 8:57 PM