So, you’re standing at a grain elevator or maybe just staring at a bag of flour in the pantry, wondering how the math actually works. It's a classic question. How much wheat in a bushel? The short answer is sixty pounds. Exactly 60 lbs. Well, "exactly" is a bit of a loaded word in the world of agriculture, but that's the standard US test weight. If you buy a bushel of wheat today, you’re buying 60 pounds of grain.
But here’s where it gets weird.
A bushel isn't really a measure of weight. Historically, it’s a measure of volume—basically how much space something takes up in a round wooden basket. If you filled that basket with feathers, it wouldn’t weigh sixty pounds. If you filled it with lead shot, it’d break your back. But for wheat, the industry just shook hands on 60 pounds a long time ago and never looked back.
It's about density.
Why the "Standard" Bushel Weight is Actually a Moving Target
Agriculture isn't a factory process. You aren't stamping out plastic widgets. You're growing living organisms subject to rain, heat, and bugs. Because of that, the actual density of wheat varies.
Farmers talk about "test weight" constantly. If a farmer hauls a load of wheat to the elevator and the grain is plump and healthy, it might actually weigh 62 or 63 pounds per volumetric bushel. That’s high-quality stuff. On the flip side, if a drought hit or disease stunted the kernels, that same volume of grain might only weigh 54 pounds.
The elevator still buys it based on the 60-pound standard bushel.
If you bring in 6,000 pounds of grain, they pay you for 100 bushels. Period. However, if your test weight is low—say, 52 pounds—they’ll "dock" you. They pay you for the weight, but they cut the price per bushel because the quality is lower. It’s a brutal bit of math that can make or break a farm's yearly profit.
Hard Red Winter vs. Soft White: Does it Change the Weight?
Technically, no. The 60-pound standard applies across the board in the United States for all wheat classes. Whether it’s the Hard Red Winter wheat grown in the Kansas plains or the Soft White wheat from the Pacific Northwest, the transaction unit remains 60 lbs.
The utility of that bushel changes, though.
Hard wheats have more protein. They make better bread because the gluten is strong. Soft wheats are lower in protein and better for cookies or crackers. So, while you have the same "amount" of wheat by weight, you have a completely different amount of "baking power" depending on the variety.
From the Field to the Loaf: What Does 60 Pounds Actually Get You?
Let’s get practical. Most people asking how much wheat in a bushel aren't trying to run a commodity hedge fund; they want to know how much bread they can bake.
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One bushel of wheat (60 lbs) yields roughly 42 to 45 pounds of white flour.
Why the loss? You have to strip away the bran and the germ. If you’re going the whole-wheat route, you get almost the full 60 pounds back as flour because you’re grinding up the entire kernel, "everything but the squeal," as old-timers used to say about pigs.
Think about it this way:
A standard 60-pound bushel of wheat contains enough product to produce about 70 loaves of white bread. That's a lot of sandwiches. If you’re a family of four eating two loaves a week, one single bushel of wheat keeps you in toast for nearly a year.
Actually, it’s closer to 90 loaves if you’re baking whole grain.
The Hidden Costs in a Bushel
When you see the price of wheat on the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT), maybe it’s sitting at $6.00 or $7.00 per bushel. You might think, "Wow, bread should be cheap!"
It isn't.
The wheat in a loaf of bread usually accounts for less than 10 cents of the total price you pay at the grocery store. The rest? It’s packaging, transportation, labor, advertising, and the energy required to heat the ovens. When wheat prices double, the price of your bread barely moves because the grain is such a small part of the overhead. It’s a strange reality of the food supply chain.
International Confusion: Bushels vs. Tonnes
If you start looking at global markets, the "bushel" starts to feel like an American obsession. Most of the world—including major exporters like Russia, Australia, and the EU—works in metric tonnes.
This is where the math gets messy.
One metric tonne of wheat is 1,000 kilograms. To convert that to bushels, you divide the weight by the 60-pound standard.
There are approximately 36.74 bushels of wheat in one metric tonne.
If you’re reading a news report about a 20-million-tonne harvest in Ukraine, you’re looking at over 734 million bushels. It's a staggering amount of grain. In the US, we still cling to the bushel because our entire infrastructure—from the size of grain cart augers to the software in the combines—is built around it. It’s hard to change the language of an entire industry.
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How Moisture Ruins the Math
Moisture is the enemy of the honest bushel.
When a farmer harvests wheat, it needs to be dry. Ideally, around 13.5% moisture. If the wheat is "wet"—say 16% or 18%—it’s heavier. Water is heavy.
If an elevator buys 60 pounds of wet wheat, they aren't getting 60 pounds of grain; they’re getting 58 pounds of grain and 2 pounds of useless water that they’ll have to spend money to dry out so the pile doesn't rot or catch fire (yes, wet grain can spontaneously combust).
Because of this, elevators use moisture meters. If your wheat is over the 13.5% threshold, they "shrink" your bushel count. They’ll take your total weight and mathematically subtract the water weight to bring it down to the "dry" equivalent.
You might pull onto the scale with 1,000 bushels by weight but leave with a check for 960 bushels after the moisture adjustment.
Real-World Example: The 2024 Harvest Nuance
Looking at data from the USDA and organizations like the Kansas Wheat Commission, we saw massive swings in what a "bushel" looked like in the field recently. In some areas, high heat during the "grain fill" stage meant the kernels didn't get as big as they should.
Farmers were seeing "shriveled" wheat.
The volume was there—the bins looked full—but the weight wasn't. A "bushel" of that shriveled grain might only weigh 54 pounds. This meant that even though a farmer's combine told them they were harvesting 50 bushels per acre by volume, their actual paycheck (based on the 60-pound standard) showed much less. This is why "bushels per acre" is the most lied-about stat in any rural coffee shop.
Measuring Your Own: The Homeowner's Scale
Maybe you aren't a farmer. Maybe you're a prepper or a home baker buying in bulk. How do you measure a bushel?
If you don't have a massive industrial scale, you can use volume as a proxy, but be careful. A US Winchester bushel (the standard volume) is 2,150.42 cubic inches.
Basically, it's about 9.3 gallons.
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If you have two five-gallon buckets from a hardware store and you fill them almost to the top, you have roughly one bushel of wheat. If that wheat is high quality, those two buckets together should weigh right around 60 pounds.
The Impact of Tillage and Soil Health
Experts like Dr. David Montgomery (author of Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations) have pointed out that how we grow wheat changes the "density" of the nutrients within that 60-pound bushel.
Regenerative farming practices that focus on soil health often produce grain with higher mineral content. While a "bushel" is always 60 pounds at the point of sale, the nutritional density of those 60 pounds can vary wildly. Some specialty millers are now starting to pay premiums not just for the weight of the bushel, but for the protein and falling numbers (a measure of enzyme activity) within that weight.
Summary of Key Wheat Weights
To keep your head from spinning with all these numbers, here is the breakdown of what that 60-pound bushel actually represents in the real world:
- Total Weight: 60 pounds (standard).
- Whole Wheat Flour Yield: Approximately 60 pounds.
- White Flour Yield: Approximately 42–45 pounds.
- Bread Production: ~70 loaves of white or ~90 loaves of whole grain.
- Pasta Production: About 42 pounds of semolina/pasta.
- Volume: ~9.3 US gallons (roughly two 5-gallon buckets).
Moving Forward With Your Grain
Knowing how much wheat in a bushel is the first step toward understanding the broader grain market or just managing your own food storage.
If you are buying wheat for long-term storage, stop counting by the bushel and start counting by the pound. Because moisture and air gaps change how much grain fits in a bucket, weight is the only way to ensure you actually have the calories you think you have.
If you're looking to purchase, check the "Test Weight" on the spec sheet. Anything 58 lbs or higher is considered "Grade 1." If the test weight is below 56 lbs, you're looking at "Grade 3" or lower, which means more shriveled kernels and less flour per pound.
Go by weight, verify the moisture, and always factor in a 20% loss if you’re planning on milling white flour. This keeps your baking math accurate and your pantry well-stocked.
Next time you see a grain truck rolling down the highway, remember: that trailer is likely holding about 1,000 bushels. That's 60,000 pounds of grain—enough to make 70,000 loaves of bread. Just one truck. The scale of the industry is truly hard to wrap your head around once you realize how much potential is packed into a single 60-pound unit.
Check your local grain elevator's daily "bid sheet" online to see the current price for a 60-pound bushel in your area; it’s a fascinating window into the global economy from a local perspective.