{TXTTITLE}
LRC
大字
小字
滚动
全页
1The planting for hard red winter wheat in the United States is already halfway completed.
2But experts say next year's crop is already being limited by too little water in the middle of the country.
3Planting plans may be cut back in the U.S. even with historically high prices for wheat crops at this time of year.
4The high prices are a result of rising worldwide demand and limited wheat supplies.
5And the U.S. is among the top five wheat exporters worldwide.
6In the states of Kansas and Oklahoma, the drought threatens crops already in the ground from developing properly.
7It also discourages farmers from trying to plant more.
8Kent Winter is a farmer in Andale, Kansas. Winter described the situation as "grim," meaning unpleasant or bad to think about.
9He said he normally plants seeds by mid-October but has yet to plant any wheat this year.
10About two-thirds of wheat in the U.S. is grown as a winter crop rather than as a spring crop.
11Without water, wheat plants may fail to come out from the ground.
12Even a delayed appearance would threaten yield possibilities by narrowing the window for plants to develop a strong root system and push out more stems, known as tillers, before winter.
13Mark Hodges is an agriculture expert with Plains Grains Inc, an Oklahoma-based group that tests wheat for quality.
14Hodges said, "If you don't have the tillers in the fall, it's really hard to make up that number in the spring."
15While wheat farmers would like to get high market prices, the dry weather may discourage them from purchasing and using supplies of high-priced seeds and fertilizer.
16Justin Gilpin of the Kansas Wheat Commission expects the number of Kansas wheat acres planted for harvest in 2023 to remain the same as the 7.3 million acres seeded for 2022.
17Winter agreed. "With the price of wheat, a lot of operators were planning to at least match or even up their acres for this coming year. But this drought is having a huge" effect "on plans," he said.
18Poor plant growth could have a longer-term cost as well.
19Wheat helps keep soil in place, protecting it from wind damage.
20"No farmer wants to see his ground blowing. So you go ahead and plant wheat, and hope ... you get it up before winter comes," said Martin Kerschen, who farms in Garden Plain, Kansas.
21Wheat is a famously strong crop that can come back from difficult weather conditions.
22But weather predictions suggest the drought will likely continue in Kansas and surrounding wheat-producing states through December.
23In Kansas, 27 percent of the state is in "exceptional drought," the most extreme kind of drought.
24Almost the entire state is unusually dry, said the latest weekly U.S. Drought Monitor report prepared by a group of climate experts.
25An important reason for the drought is the La Nina weather pattern, which often favors warm and dry conditions in the middle of the country.
26The current La Nina is in its third year.
27I'm John Russell.