Corn-planting progress fell further behind normal last week as wet conditions again allowed only limited progress by producers across the Midwest.
USDA pegged corn planting progress at 10% as of Sunday, April 27, up only 6 percentage points from a week earlier and behind last year’s pace of 20% and the five-year average pace of 35%.
The planting progress figure is the slowest since 1995, when progress was only 10% as of April 30.
USDA has still not begun reporting corn emergence this year. A year ago, 4% of the U.S. crop had emerged and on average over the past five years, 9% of the crop has been emerged as of the final Sunday in April.
Progress in the top corn-planting state of Iowa was pegged at only 3%, compared with 12% a year earlier and a five-year average of 33%.
Slightly drier conditions in the western third of Iowa did result in more opportunities for fieldwork, including corn planting. However, statewide, there were an average of only 1.3 days suitable for fieldwork last week, according to the Iowa office of the National Agricultural Statistics Service.
At 66% complete, Iowa fertilizer applications were 13 percentage points behind last year and 18 points behind the five-year average.
In the No. 2 corn growing state of Illinois, planting progress was put at only 6% as of Sunday, far behind last year’s pace of 29% and the five-year average of 55%.
Most of the corn that did go into the ground in Illinois last week was planted in the eastern and central crop districts, with planting activity still limited by wet conditions in southern districts.
Editor’s note: Richard Brock, The Corn And Soybean Digest's Marketing Editor, is president of Brock Associates, a farm market advisory firm, and publisher of The Brock Report.