Crop Progress

The USDA traditionally shuts down its weekly Crop Progress report at the end of November because the growing season is over and the fall harvest is all but complete in most states. But this year, the USDA will continue to monitor the harvest, which is weeks later than usual, into December.

Just 65 percent of the U.S. corn crop was rated in good or excellent condition in the USDA’s first assessment of the year. That figure came in well below the 72 percent rating at the end of May 2016, when farmers were headed for a record-setting harvest.

Repeated rain storms have slowed the winter wheat harvest from Indiana to Kansas, says the weekly Crop Progress report.

Persistently rainy spring weather is bogging down the winter wheat harvest in Kansas, the No. 1 state for winter wheat, Oklahoma and Missouri, says the weekly Crop Progress report.

Growers in Kansas and Missouri, which produce more than 10 percent of the U.S. soybean crop, have planted less than half as much of the soybean land as usual for the first week in June, says the weekly Crop Progress report.

Farmers harvested 7.4 million acres of winter wheat in the past week, 19 percent of the total crop. The harvest is now 38 percent complete, according to the weekly Crop Progress report.

Only a fraction of the corn and soybean crops are still in the field, says the weekly Crop Progress report. It says 89 percent of corn and 94 percent of soybeans have been harvested.

The corn and soybean harvest is running far behind normal, says the weekly Crop Progress report. Some 31 percent of the corn crop and 53 percent of the soybean crop was in the bin at the start of this week.

Corn yields in Ohio and South Dakota are likely to be far above last year's levels, say scouts on the Pro Farmer crop tour. Their reports indicate a yield of 182.1 bushels an acre in Ohio and 152.7 bushels an acre in South Dakota.

Traders expect USDA to forecast record crops today - 14.25 billion bushels of corn and 3.82 billion bushels of soybeans - in its first estimate of the fall harvest only a few weeks away.

The U.S. corn and soybean crops are in phenomenally good shape for the first week of August, said the weekly Crop Progress report, despite dry July weather in the western Corn Belt.

The winter wheat harvest, at 16 percent complete, is running 4 points behind average, says the weekly Crop Progress report.

Despite a late, wet and chilly planting season, the U.S. corn crop is in prime condition. "U.S. crop conditions in the most recent Crop Progress report are the best in four years for the aggregated 18 reported states...

Cold, wet weather is holding the spring planting season to a slow start, says the weeklyCrop Progress report from USDA. At the start of this week, 6 pct of corn was planted in the major states vs the usual 22 pct.

Nothing says spring planting like snowfall across the upper Midwest in mid-April, does it? Up to five inches of snow fell in north central Wisconsin on Monday with forecasts of an inch or two of snow today in Detroit and Toledo.