Planted Wheat Acres Down

Growers in Kansas and across the nation have seeded far fewer acres of winter wheat for harvest this year.

A report released Monday by the National Agricultural Statistics Service shows a 5 percent drop in U.S. winter wheat acres compared to a year ago, with 40.5 million acres seeded.

Most of that acreage is hard red winter wheat, the class most commonly seeded in Kansas. Nationwide hard red acres total 29.5 million acres.

Kansas remains the nation’s biggest wheat producer with 9.4 million acres planted for harvest in 2015. That is a 2 percent decrease from a year ago.

Texas growers put in 5.9 million acres of wheat, followed by Oklahoma with 5.1 million acres.

Winter wheat is seeded in the fall and harvested in late spring or early summer.