WICHITA, Kan. — The extraordinary quality of this year's winter wheat harvest in the Southern Plains may help offset the high cost of flour for millers and consumers, preliminary data shows.

The hard red winter wheat crop quality is so high that flour mills will be able to offset shortages of the crop by combining it with other, more plentiful wheat types, said Mike Woolverton, a grain marketing economist at Kansas State University.

The nation faces a shortage of good milling wheat this year because of smaller harvests in states that produce hard red winter wheat. Also problematic is a shrinking crop of spring wheat, which is typically used for making breads.

The winter wheat harvest results in the Southern Plains mean those growers will likely receive premium prices.