USDA Crop Progress: Corn Condition 72% Good to Excellent; Soybeans 93% Planted, 70% Good to Excellent as of June 16

This article was originally published at 3:05 p.m. CDT on Monday, June 17. It was last updated with additional information at 4:15 p.m. CDT on Monday, June 17.

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OMAHA (DTN) — Good-to-excellent condition ratings for both corn and soybeans dropped 2 percentage points last week, but ratings for both crops remain well above last year, USDA NASS reported in its weekly Crop Progress on Monday.

Development of both crops continues to run slightly ahead of normal, and the U.S. winter wheat harvest is also running ahead of its average pace, NASS said.

CORN

— Crop development: 93% of corn had emerged as of Sunday, 2 points behind last year’s 95% but 1 point ahead of the five-year average of 92%.

— Crop condition: NASS estimated that 72% of the crop was in good-to-excellent condition, down 2 points from 74% the previous week but well ahead of last year’s 55%. Five percent of the crop was rated very poor to poor, unchanged from the previous week and lower than 12% last year. “Seventy-four percent of the corn crop in Iowa is considered good to excellent, Illinois is at 65% and Minnesota is at 71% good to excellent,” noted DTN Lead Analyst Todd Hultman.       

SOYBEANS

— Planting progress: Soybean planting moved ahead 6 points last week to reach 93% complete as of Sunday. That was 4 percentage points behind last year’s 97% but 2 percentage points ahead of the five-year average of 91%.

— Crop development: 82% of soybeans had emerged as of Sunday, 8 points behind last year’s 90% but 3 points ahead of the five-year average of 79%.

— Crop condition: NASS estimated that 70% of soybeans that had emerged were in good-to-excellent condition, down 2 points from 72% the previous week but well above 54% last year. “The good-to-excellent soybean rating was 61% in Illinois, 74% in Iowa and 79% in Nebraska,” Hultman said.

WINTER WHEAT

— Crop development: 94% of winter wheat was headed as of Sunday. That was 1 point ahead of 93% at this time last year and 3 points ahead of the five-year average of 91%.

— Harvest progress: Harvest picked up speed last week, moving ahead 15 percentage points to reach 27% complete nationwide as of Sunday. That was 14 points ahead of last year’s 13% and 13 points ahead of the five-year average pace of 14%. “As usual, the winter wheat harvest is making the quickest progress in Southern states, with Texas 63% harvested, Oklahoma 80% harvested and Arkansas at 68%,” noted DTN Senior Analyst Dana Mantini. “Kansas is now at 28% harvested.”

— Crop condition: 49% of the crop remaining in fields was rated in good-to-excellent condition, up 2 points from 47% the previous week and still up considerably from 38% a year ago.

SPRING WHEAT

— Crop development: 95% of spring wheat had emerged, 1 point behind 96% last year but 2 points ahead of the five-year average of 93%. Four percent of the crop was headed, 4 points behind 8% last year and 3 points behind the five-year average of 7%.

— Crop condition: NASS estimated that 76% of the crop was in good-to-excellent condition nationwide, up 4 points from 72% the previous week. That is still ahead of last year’s rating of 51% good to excellent. “Eighty-two percent of spring wheat in North Dakota is rated in good-to-excellent condition, and 83% of the Minnesota crop is rated good to excellent,” Mantini said.

THE WEEK AHEAD IN WEATHER

The Western Corn Belt and Upper Midwest will see continued chances of rain and severe weather this week, while the Eastern Corn Belt will be blasted by heat, according to DTN Ag Meteorologist John Baranick.

“It’s going to be a stagnant weather pattern this week,” Baranick said. “A front has parked itself from about Nebraska to Wisconsin, and it will waffle around that region and a little north throughout the week. Daily showers and thunderstorms and some severe weather are expected. But widespread heavy amounts of rain are going to fall across there and points a bit farther north throughout the week.

“South of the front, it will be very hot and humid, and there are heat advisories and warnings posted for most of the Eastern Corn Belt. Daytime highs will be consistently in the 90s Fahrenheit and approaching 100 degrees F in some spots just about every day. There are some cloud cover and pop-up showers that will occur in the heat, putting a damper on high temperatures at times and bringing a little soil moisture around, but they won’t have a very large effect on the heat stress that will be piling up. The good news is that most areas here have good soil moisture from a very active spring. But that tends to run out, and we’ll need more rain quickly.

“The front will finally make a move south and especially east this weekend, and we’ll bring in some milder air and chances for showers across the Corn Belt, maybe down into the Delta and Southeast by early next week as well.”

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Editor’s Note: How are your crops looking? Are they better, worse or right on track with USDA NASS’ observations this week? Send us your comments, and we’ll add them to the Crop Progress report story. You can email comments to Anthony.greder@dtn.com or direct message him on social platform X @AGrederDTN. Please include the location of where you farm.

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To view weekly crop progress reports issued by National Ag Statistics Service offices in individual states, visit http://www.nass.usda.gov/. Look for the U.S. map in the “Find Data and Reports by” section and choose the state you wish to view in the drop-down menu. Then look for that state’s “Crop Progress & Condition” report.

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Anthony Greder can be reached at anthony.greder@dtn.com