It has been a tough winter for the Midwest and Great Plains and another winter blast is set to sweep across much of the country's winter wheat belt.

"Wheat is a crop that has nine lives but certainly in some of areas some of those lives have been used by the harsh winter conditions," said Agriculture Department Meteorologist Brad Rippey.

Winter wheat in the Southern Plains is dealing with a fourth year of drought. Texas is the only state reporting wheat condition.

This fall, it wasn't that bad, 28 percent of the crop was rated in "poor" to "very poor condition."

But that changed this week.

"Not good, we see 47 percent of the winter wheat crop rated ‘very poor' to ‘poor' in Texas," said Rippey.

Meanwhile, from South Dakota to Oklahoma and Nebraska, it's not so much drought, but harsh winter conditions affecting the wheat – wild temperature fluctuations from the 60s and 70s, down below zero, and then back up again, plus a lot of snow cover at times and rough winds.

Rippey said the wheat was in pretty good shape going in to dormancy.

"But coming out we have some concerns that we will have had some winter kill, especially in Nebraska where it was a little colder and a little less snow covered than some of the neighboring areas," said Rippey.

We won't really know until the crop starts to green up.

Source - http://www.rfdtv.com/