FARGO, N.D. (Reuters) – Hot and dry weather during the growing season slashed yield prospects for U.S. hard red spring wheat to the lowest in nearly a decade, scouts on an annual crop tour said on Thursday.

The Wheat Quality Council tour pegged the 2017 U.S. hard red spring wheat yield at 38.1 bushels per acre (bpa) following the three-day tour of North Dakota, the top spring wheat state, and adjacent areas in Minnesota and South Dakota,

That was down from the tour’s 2016 forecast of 45.7 bpa, the prior five-year average of 46.8 bpa, and was the lowest since 2008. The U.S. Department of Agriculture on July 12 estimated yields of spring wheat, not including durum, at 40.3 bpa.

Millers and bakers were bracing for higher costs and tighter supplies of the spring wheat variety, prized for its high protein content needed to bake bread and pizza crust.

The tour also projected an average yield for 2017 durum wheat of 39.7 bpa, down from 45.4 last year. Durum generally is used to make flour for noodles.

The big question this year was abandonment, or how many acres would not be harvested after wheat failed to make a crop. The tour does not project wheat production or the number of acres harvested or abandoned.

Some wheat acres in western North Dakota have already been baled for hay, scouts found. But it was still too early to predict what percentage of planted acres would be harvested, and the tour’s routes do not cover some areas most impacted by drought in far western North Dakota and Montana.

“We are in uncharted territory,” said Dave Green, executive vice president of the Wheat Quality Commission.

In southwestern North Dakota, abandonment has been “guessed at 40 to 50 percent,” Green said.

Last year in North Dakota, 5.85 million spring wheat acres were harvested out of 6 million acres planted, or about 97 percent.

“There were excellent crops in the east; they deteriorated as we went west, and we saw a lot of very poor wheat out west … Our (yield) averages are down significantly, showing that deterioration,” Green said.

MGEX spring wheat futures settled up 6-1/2 cents at $7.36-1/2 per bushel, far below the four-year high of $8.16-1/4 reached on July 3.

“Quality-wise, what the tour showed and from speaking with producers, disease issues are a lot lower this year. I would not say non-existent, but very low incidences. Protein (is) likely to come in high,” said Erica Olson, marketing specialist at the North Dakota Wheat Commission.