More than 19 million acres of corn were planted last week, thanks to generally favorable weather in the Midwest, according to the Crop Progress report released on Monday. The USDA said farmers planted 22 percent of the total projected crop in the week. That’s an average of 2.7 million acres (4,219 square miles) a day, based on the 88 million acres of corn forecast to be planted this year.
After a cold and wet start to the spring, 39 percent of the corn crop has been planted, compared with just 17 percent one week ago. Planting is slightly behind the five-year average of 44 percent by early May. The surge in planting was likely to assuage fears of yield losses due to late planting or corn land being switched to soybeans.
The USDA will make its first projections of the fall harvest on Thursday. Traders expect that the corn and soybean crops will rank among the largest ever.
Soybean planting, at 15 percent complete, is running slightly ahead of average. The USDA said that 37 percent of the winter wheat crop was in poor or very poor condition due to drought, compared with 15 percent last year.