With a helping hand from Mother Nature, Virginia farmers produced one of the best winter wheat crops in recent years, according to the National Agricultural Statistics Service.

Over a month has passed since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine, and economists and counter-crisis experts suggest the economic and political ramifications are still taking shape.

Fall is harvest time for most grain farmers. But growers in eastern Virginia use autumn to plant next year’s wheat crop, which sprouts and then goes dormant over the winter before next year’s harvest.

Rain-saturated soil may have interrupted the plantings of winter small grains in Virginia, but farmers report crop conditions so far are good.