News
Slowest planting progress on record
USDA’s meteorologist says this
week’s corn planting progress hit the slowest on record stretching more than 30
years and the forecast doesn’t offer much improvement.
“More storminess is imminent really across the western half, the western two-thirds of the Corn Belt which is expecting copious rainfall over the next several days.”
Brad Rippey says as of Sunday,
49 percent of corn was planted, 31 percent behind the national average.
But it’s way behind for some ‘I’ states he says, “Illinois 65 percentage points behind average, Indiana 59 points behind the five-year average of 73 percent.”
Soybean planting in the U.S. is 28 percent behind average. Rippey says some areas are at less than 10 percent, “Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Ohio and South Dakota.”
National sugarbeet planting is almost complete and ahead of average. “We saw more than a third of the crop planted in Minnesota during the week as they saw a big advance from 54 to 90 percent complete. Still some wetness induced delays in Michigan however, just 74 percent of the sugarbeet acreage planted.”
Rippey says last week’s warm-up helped hard red wheat conditions but soft red winter wheat is being impacted by wet conditions. “In Ohio for example, 32 percent of the winter wheat crop rated very poor to poor, Michigan at 27 percent.”
Spring wheat planting remains
10 percent behind normal.
