Eastern Colorado Farmers Brace for Worst Wheat Harvest Since 1965

By Jeff Rice

In the heart of Colorado wheat country, only about half the typical precipitation has fallen this year, forcing farmers to make hard choices

There’s something heartbreaking about the “amber waves of grain” that normally ripple across northeast Colorado this time of year; climate conditions have crippled the 2026 winter wheat crop.

Instead of mile after mile of dense, waist-high stems and heads heavy with grain, this year’s crop rises barely more than ankle-high, is sparse and projected to yield a fraction of previous crops.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service, or NASS, Colorado is forecast to produce just 33.6 million bushels of winter wheat in 2026. This represents a 52% drop from the state’s 10-year average, resulting from severe drought and ill-timed periods of freezing temperatures across a wide swath of America’s wheat belt.

Most of the wheat grown in eastern Colorado is classified as No. 2 hard red winter wheat. It’s used mostly for baking bread and making noodles. It is planted in the fall and, ideally, sprouts before the first hard freeze, establishes its root system, and then goes dormant for the winter. Farmers then hope for adequate snow cover to prevent the green shoots from freezing and to provide early spring moisture. Adequate spring rainfall is needed for the wheat to reach its maximum growth and head size, followed by hot, dry weather to ripen the crop.

Almost none of those conditions have existed this year. Freezing temperatures, wind and a lack of snowfall damaged the crop over the winter. There was little or no snowmelt to water the crop during the spring warm-up. And precipitation has been dismal at best.

Brad Erker, executive director of the Colorado Wheat Administrative Council in Fort Collins, said that during the annual Wheat Field Daysearlier this month he was told this year’s crop is the worst in recent memory.

“I had farmers who have been farming 50, sometimes 60 years, say it’s the worst they’ve ever seen,” he said. “NASS says it’s the worst since 1965, but I think even their numbers are a little optimistic.”

While drought and freeze are, according to Erker, the “short story,” the calamitous conditions stretch back even further. According to NOAA’s National Integrated Drought Information System, persistent dryness throughout 2025 left soil moisture in the zone where most roots are growing critically low across the High Plains.