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…