WICHITA, KANSAS, US  — Scouts on the Wheat Quality Council’s annual winter wheat tour through Kansas, the top US production state, estimated the 2025 crop yields in western and southern Kansas higher than last year and the highest since 2021.

For the tour’s second day, which takes scouts from Colby along one of six routes to Wichita, the average estimated yield was 53.3 bushels per acre based on 211 field stops, which compares with 42.4 bushels per acre based on 216 fields stops on the second day of the 2024 tour.

The cumulative average yield for the first two legs of the tour was 52 bushels per acre based on 407 field stops, which compares with 45.8 bushels per acre from 422 field stops in the first two days of the 2024 tour.

Scouts saw wheat in a variety of conditions from very good to very poor. Some wheat already had been cut for hay but had yet to be bailed. Many more fields were in good conditions and had good yield potential but were beset with disease.

Most common was wheat streak mosaic, which exhibits itself in the wheat plant’s leaves and reduces yield by inhibiting the photosynthesis process.

The tour is held annually by the Wheat Quality Council, planned by its executive vice president, Dave Green, and hosted by Aaron Harries of Kansas Wheat.

Tour scouts comprise professionals along the wheat value chain, including producers, grain merchants, millers, procurement specialists, bakers and food manufacturers, along with academic scholars and the media. Government employees were excluded this year due to cutbacks. 

The tour continues May 15 in Manhattan, Kansas, US.

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