Wheat prices exploded higher this week as concerns mounted about dry conditions in the southern Great Plains. The hard red winter wheat crop in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas is in increasingly dire straits, with only 14% in good or excellent condition, according to a recent USDA report.
This caused Kansas City wheat futures to rise over $4.70 per bushel for the first time since August, and led to the highest one-day trading volume in history for the contract.
While the poor conditions are concerning many farmers, others have been using the futures markets to capture the now-higher prices. They expect that the crop will come out just fine, dismissing worriers with a common adage that stresses wheat’s resilience, “wheat is a weed.”