AMARILLO, TEXAS -- The heat that has had a major impact on row crops this year.

Officials with the Texas Wheat Producer Board and Association tell us Texas is about 97 percent, and that's a little ahead of where farmers usually are this time of year.

Kody Bessent of the TWBA said, "The crop conditions for this year have been dramatically hindered due to to the fact of the drought situation that we're in state wide. The exacerbating temperatures that we've seen and high winds, it's been just one of those untypical years that's unfortunately not only affecting wheat, but other row crops commodities as we go into the harvesting of corn."

The same goes for cotton this fall, the High Plains hasn't seen a whole lot of measurable rain when, according to Bessent, we should have had about 19 inches by now.

That has hindered both production and yield this year, but Bessent says things could be much worse.

"Prices have remained competitive which has helped even though they've had lower yields, quality factors have been excellent this year with high protein high test weights as well, so that has definitely help the drastic measures we're seeing with weather conditions."

However, producers have been able to cash in on their crop insurance to mitigate the risks that are out of their hands, mother nature, for instance.

"It's a good thing that they do adhere to these unfortunate conditions that they have no control over, otherwise we would not be as competitive from a marketing standpoint and consumers of food would not have a safe and abundant food supply with out them adhering to the natural disasters they have to deal with every year."

As far as the price of wheat is concerned this year, prices just went down dramatically Thursday upon the release of the U.S.D.A. progress and acreage report.