The Wheat Quality Council’s annual hard red spring wheat and durum tour took place July 23-26 in North Dakota, also including portions of South Dakota and Minnesota.The 325 spring wheat fields survey averaged 41.1 bushels per acre, up from 38.1 bushels in 2017. Seventeen durum fields averaged 39.3 bushels, which was in line from last year’s average of 39.7 bushels. No winter wheat fields were evaluated. WQC Executive Vice President Dave Green says the theme of this year’s crop was variable. “The estimated yields did come as a surprise. We came into the tour only knowing USDA’s estimates, and those numbers indicated a large (wheat) crop with little problems,” says Green. “So our expectation was to see an uniform, 85 percent good-to-excellent crop, but that wasn’t the case.”