US States That Produce the Most Wheat

Wheat is the second most important grain grown in the United States, behind only corn, and it turns up in nearly everything: bread, pasta, noodles, crackers, cereal, and the flour in the pantry. It is planted in roughly 40 states, sorted into five classes (hard red winter, hard red spring, soft red winter, white, and durum), and measured, as grain has been for centuries, in bushels. The country was once the world's top wheat exporter, but Russia has held that title for years now, leaving the US around fourth. Production is wildly uneven from one state to the next, and a small group of them does most of the heavy lifting. Here are the states that grow the most.

Kansas

Kansas grows more wheat than any other state, about 346.8 million bushels in 2025, and it has leaned into that identity so hard that "The Wheat State" is a common nickname, never mind that the official one is the Sunflower State. It is the largest stretch of dryland winter wheat country in the world. One old claim does need retiring, though: Kansas does not grow half the nation's wheat. It grows closer to a sixth, which is still first place by a wide margin.

Most of it is hard red winter wheat, the workhorse behind American bread flour. The variety that built the industry, Turkey Red, arrived in the 1870s with Mennonite immigrants from the Russian empire, who by most accounts carried the seed grain over in their luggage. Kansas also keeps more wheat in storage than any other state, which is a handy trait when you grow this much of it.

North Dakota

North Dakota has quietly closed the gap. It produced about 334 million bushels in 2025, nearly catching Kansas, and did it with completely different wheat. Where Kansas does winter wheat, North Dakota leads the country in hard red spring wheat, the high-protein grain bakers blend in for strength, and in durum, the amber wheat that becomes pasta. If you have eaten spaghetti in America, a North Dakota field was probably involved.

Wheat grows across all 53 of the state's counties and remains one of its signature crops, alongside soybeans, sugar beets, and sunflowers. The 2016 version of this list put North Dakota at 238 million bushels, so the climb since then has been steep.

Montana

Montana is the surprise of the current rankings, up to third place at roughly 182 million bushels and now comfortably ahead of Washington. It grows spring wheat, winter wheat, and durum all at once, across some of the emptiest farm country in the Lower 48. The state has a little over a million residents and several million acres of wheat, which works out to a great deal more wheat than people.

The northern and central plains do most of the work, where dry summers and hard winters suit high-protein wheats. Very little of the crop stays home. Montana grows far more than it could ever eat and ships the surplus out by rail.

Washington

Washington slipped to fourth as Montana climbed, with about 141 million bushels in 2025, but it is still the capital of soft white wheat, the low-protein class prized for cakes, pastries, and Asian-style noodles. Much of it grows in the Palouse, the rolling hills of wind-blown loess in the state's southeast that rank among the most productive dryland wheat ground anywhere. Washington also grows club wheat, an oddball subclass that barely exists anywhere else in the country.

Here is another correction from the old version: the state does not farm a mere 185,000 acres of wheat. It plants closer to two million. Most of the crop rolls down to the ports along the Columbia River and out across the Pacific to buyers in Asia.

Idaho

Idaho is famous for potatoes, yet it lands fifth on the wheat list too, at about 107 million bushels. Irrigation off the Snake River Plain lets it grow both soft white wheat, like its neighbor Washington, and harder wheats for bread and blending. It edges out Oklahoma for fifth place by a whisker, out-producing several states that treat wheat as a far bigger part of their identity.

Other Top Wheat States

Just behind the top five, Oklahoma (about 106 million bushels) and Texas (85 million) anchor the southern hard red winter belt, while Minnesota (76 million) and South Dakota (64 million) add spring wheat from the north. Colorado (71 million) rounds out the top ten with high-plains winter wheat. Oregon, a fixture of the old list, has slipped just outside it as the northern plains states surged. Together with the leaders above, these states supply the bulk of a national crop that came to about 1.98 billion bushels in 2025.

Top 10 Wheat-Producing US States

All-wheat production for 2025, from the USDA's National Agricultural Statistics Service.