After weeks of delays and rain and flooding it looks like farmers in the soggy regions of the U.S., save for Ohio, are making great headway in getting crops into the ground. Today’s Crop Progress Report from the USDA is showing about 63% of the U.S. corn crop is in the ground. Still behind last year’s pace of 87%, and the five-year average of 75%, progress made a big jump from last week’s 40%.
Ohio is still only at 7% complete, compared to last year’s pace of 83%. But, it’s probably time to quit comparing last year’s great planting conditions to this year’s problems. States nearly done planting corn include North Carolina (98%), Texas (93%) and Iowa (92%).
Corn has emerged in every state but North Dakota and Wisconsin. The Upper Midwest is lagging the furthest behind, but that’s to be expected. Only 1% of the corn in Minnesota, Ohio and Pennsylvania has emerged; 2% has popped up in South Dakota, 3% in Michigan and 4% in Indiana.
Soybeans are in the ground in every state, too. The crop is about 22% planted – a big jump over last week’s 7%. Louisiana (79%) and Mississippi (61%) lead the planting progress, while the Upper Midwest states are, for the most part, less than 10% done with soybean planting. North Dakota is 2% done, Ohio has completed 3% – along with Kentucky – South Dakota has reached 5% and Indiana has 6% of their soybeans in the ground.
