Wichita ? The Kansas winter wheat crop is holding its own despite spotty late-spring freezes, drought and disease all taking a bite out of its bounty, the Kansas Agricultural Statistics Service said Monday.

In its weekly report, the service downgraded the overall condition of the crop compared with a week ago. But the wheat is still faring far better than it did at this time during the last drought-plagued growing season.

KASS rated 13 percent of the crop excellent, while 51 was pegged as good. Another 28 percent was in fair condition. Only 8 percent of the crop was rated poor or very poor. A year ago at this time, 36 percent of the crop was rated poor or very poor.

Now that temperatures are warming, farmers are getting a better feel for the extent of damages left after late freezes hit parts of Kansas earlier this month.

The latest KASS report indicated that 60 percent of the wheat crop escaped freeze damage. About 30 percent had only light freeze damage; another 9 percent showed moderate freeze damage and 1 percent showed severe damage.

Crops in north central and northeast Kansas were more likely to be hurt by the late freezes than other parts of the state, said Jim Shroyer, Kansas State Extension wheat specialist.

Disease problems also are showing up, KASS said, with 52 percent showing no signs, 30 percent with light disease, 15 percent with moderate disease and 3 percent with severe disease. Most of the disease problems are in southwest Kansas.

Shroyer is just as worried about drought as he is disease.

Participants in last week’s annual wheat quality tour estimated a wheat harvest of just under 420 million bushels.

When he started the Kansas wheat tour last week, Shroyer was upbeat about the crop. But when he saw how dry it still was in western Kansas, the more he worried if there would be enough lingering moisture in the ground to sustain the crop if timely rains do not come.