Wheat like ever growing crop has growth stages. Winter wheat is obviously hardy or it would never survive the brutal cold temperatures it has to during the winter. The problem is when we break dormancy, the plant thinks it is go time and restarts it's growing cycle. When we are in the joint stage the plant is developing the grain head and tries to push it up through the main stem. If we are far enough along at the joint stage, this head is above ground level and is vulnerable to freezing temperatures if the plant is exposed to them. It can sustain short periods of freezing temperatures, but the longer the exposure or the colder the exposure is, the more severe the damage. In my location, we are far enough developed that any freeze exposure is committing some type of damage. We need to wait a few days and check several plants at that time to see the severity of the overall damage.
Southwest of me 100-250 miles they had low temps. right at 20F. I'm sure some of their crop around SW Kansas as well as the Oklahoma & Texas panhandles withstood some severe damage last night. Probably a better question to ask SW how things look in his area.
