The condition of the corn crop in Monday's USDA crop report improved in spite of the wet weather that won't seem to let go in the Midwest. According to USDA meteorologist Brad Rippey 59% of the corn crop is rated good to excellent; however that trails last year's 73%.
In Iowa and Indiana 15% of the crop is rated very poor to poor and drought in the Southeast and Southwest is also hurting corn conditions. Rippey says an example is the very poor to poor rating in North Carolina going from 6% to 17% to 33% in the past two weeks.
"Soybeans planted are at 91% so we are trying to finish up there," Rippey says. "Still not quite done; 96% is the five-year average as of June 22."
Several states are farther behind, such as Missouri which has only two-thirds of its soybeans planted compared to the five-year average of 98%. Emergence has reached 82%, well behind the average of 92%. Soybean conditions remain pretty steady at 57% good to excellent, but still lag behind last year's 66%.
Winter wheat is 95% headed nationally compared to the five-year average of 97%. Northern wheat is seeing significant delays for example Montana's crop is only 46% headed compared to the average of 77% at this time.
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