It hasn’t been a good year to grow wheat in Colorado. The temperature has been too high, and the rain hasn’t come.

Kevin and Laura Poss first noticed the lack of cold weather last November. The couple runs Grains from the Plains, a fourth-generation family farm in Hugo, Colorado. Every fall, they plant a number of winter wheat varieties to harvest the next summer. “Typically, with the cold weather, it’ll go dormant,” Kevin explains. “This year, it didn’t.”

Now, the Posses aren’t sure whether they’ll have a harvest. And their experience is not unique. The Colorado Wheat Administrative Committee estimates that this year’s winter wheat crop may be Colorado’s smallest since 1965, producing only 48% of the state’s 71 million bushel annual average. 

“We’re in a precarious situation,” Laura says.

Eastern Colorado is part of the North American Wheat Belt, an agricultural region that ranges 1,500 miles from Canada to Texas and produces six percent of the world’s wheat. Typically, the semi-arid climate, open plains, and winter precipitation have been well-suited for winter wheat in the Colorado Plains.

In addition to persistent heat, the farm has only received three and a half inches of precipitation this year, and three of those inches fell after April 1. Typically, six to seven inches would have fallen by this point. Hugo averages between 12 and 14 inches of precipitation annually.

The lack of moisture is especially challenging for the Posses’ dryland operation, which depends entirely on rainfall rather than irrigation.

“We’re 100 percent reliant on the moisture that God sends,” Kevin says. Most nearby farms are also dryland operations. “In a 10-mile radius, there’s only one farm that irrigates,” he adds.

Without steady rainfall, the soil not only dries out but can take far longer to recover.

“We did get some good moisture these past couple weeks,” Laura says. “But the ground is so parched, I don’t know if that will be enough. It’s very, very scary.”

In addition to the drought, the unusually warm temperatures set the wheat off to a rough start. Without dormancy, the wheat head doesn’t fully develop. And this year, the wheat also advanced early into growth stages usually not seen until much later in the season.

“Then we had two hard freezes,” Kevin says. “It got down to 15 degrees for about 10 hours.”

Laura says the wheat was especially vulnerable because of its mature growth stage. “It’s not expected that the wheat is this far along at this time of year,” she says.

Now, instead of producing green wheat heads, many plants have turned brown and brittle.

The Posses estimate they typically harvest about 20 bushels of wheat per acre. This year, Kevin says yields could fall as low as five bushels per acre — if the crop survives at all.

Without a harvest, the Posses will rely on federal crop insurance. But payouts are based on commodity prices rather than direct-to-consumer rates, potentially reducing revenue by as much as 90%.

The farm last lost a wheat crop in 2013, after extreme heat and drought the previous year prevented winter wheat from properly establishing. While Kevin’s off-farm job will help stabilize the family financially, the loss is still difficult.

They also worry about disappointing customers who rely on their flour and grain products.

“For example, my soft white wheat is one of my biggest sellers, and that field is gone,” Laura said. “It’s nothing we did on purpose.”

For now, the Posses are looking toward fall planting and hoping conditions improve enough to establish next year’s crop. But weather forecasts offer little reassurance.

“If we went back to normal rain right now, we could plant again,” Kevin says. “But looking at the forecast, I don’t see anything for the next 14 days.”

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This article is part of the Colorado Grain Chain’s series about the 2026 drought. Throughout the series, we’ll highlight the experiences of farmers, as well as CGC millers and makers.