The impact is already showing. Just 30% of the US winter wheat crop was rated good to excellent as of Sunday in USDA data, the lowest rating since 2023. Roughly half of the crop in Colorado, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Texas — the region’s largest producers — is categorized as poor to very poor, Rippey said, indicating a high risk of yield losses.

The drought is also colliding with higher input costs. Fertilizer prices have soared following attacks on Iran by the US and Israel, prompting some farmers to cut back on applications. US Representative Frank Lucas, a Republican from Oklahoma, said he chose not to purchase nitrogen fertilizer for his wheat fields in the western part of the state.

“I didn’t have enough moisture — it wouldn’t have done any good,’’ Lucas said. “Number two, I’m not even sure what the cost would be.”

Farmers were under economic pressure even before the drought threatened yields. Still, ample grain supplies elsewhere in the world could limit any price gains. In the Plains, “moisture is desperately needed,” Rippey said, adding that rainfall in the coming weeks will likely determine whether the winter wheat crop will be “made or broken for 2026.” The drought, while unlikely to impact meat prices, will also lend little reprieve to record beef costs if it stalls the rebuilding of the US cattle herd.

Relief may not arrive soon enough. Although the drying La Niña pattern has ended, heavy rains may not return to the central US until its warming counterpart, El Niño, develops later this summer. By then, the winter wheat harvest and planting window could be closing.

Early in the year, the number of heifers — young female cows that have yet to give birth — auctioned into the meat supply chain began to fall, said Altin Kalo, head economist at Steiner Consulting. That data point can signal future breeding plans, Kalo added, but as drought conditions deepened in recent weeks, auction volumes climbed back toward levels seen over the past two years.

“Drought just sets everything back,” said Ben Smith, a field operations manager with the nonprofit Farm Rescue. “That’s when guys start to have to make tough decisions on liquidating some of their herd if they can’t afford to buy feed or can’t find alternative feed.”

Farm Rescue has delivered donated hay to replace supplies lost to fires in Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska, Smith said. Two major trade associations, Nebraska Cattlemen and Oklahoma Cattlemen’s Association, have also opened mutual aid funds to support affected ranchers.

“Rebuilding, whether it’s corrals or fences, takes time and takes money,” said Nebraska Cattlemen President Craig Uden, noting that thousands of miles of pasture fencing were destroyed in the blazes. Replacement costs usually exceed $10,000 per mile, cutting into ranchers’ incomes even if they don’t show up in consumer prices. “What people really need is seed, hay, tillers and equipment to help move cattle, because a lot of them will have to find new homes for the summer.”