USDA lowered it’s good to excellent rating on the national corn crop by two percentage points this week down to 62 percent with many areas of the northwestern Corn Belt missing out on the majority of critical rains over the past seven days. It was noteworthy that Nebraska’s corn condition dropped by five points and Iowa declined by three while Indiana and Ohio continue to benefit from near ideal conditions as they posted 76 and 80 percent good to excellent ratings respectively. By the way, North Dakota conditions were down three points while South Dakota went up two and Minnesota went down by two points.
In a bit of a surprise and in contrast to the corn, the soybean rating actually improved by two percentage points - moving up to 60 percent good to excellent. Similar to the trend in corn, Nebraska on the west end of the I-80 Corridor showed a decline of two points. However, on the east end of that corridor in Ohio, the condition ratings jumped upward by six points! The highly watched Dakotas had North Dakota retaining its exceptionally low rating of only 17 percent good to excellent. South Dakota had some timely rains, so its rating jumped by four points, but Minnesota again saw disappointing rainfall totals last week, so there rating dipped by another two points.
Cotton condition slipped ever so slightly - going down just one point from last week down to 60 percent good to excellent. The biggest producing state of Texas went down one point. Meanwhile, Georgia saw a three point reduction, but Mississippi posted a four point gain.
Grain sorghum (milo) condition ratings had a dismal week which saw the national average drop by a relatively large four percentage points. Oklahoma and Nebraska took huge hits to their crop as they both lost 11 points in the weekly rating. The biggest producing state of Texas also saw a five point decline. Oddly enough, South Dakota - which saw improvement in other crops - saw a four point decrease in its grain sorghum rating.
The national rice condition rating went down one point to 72 percent. Mississippi saw a huge gain of 10 points in its good to excellent rating and Louisiana gained three points. Those increases were countered by a three point drop in Missouri and two points in Texas.
The peanut crop rating dropped two points nationwide to 73 percent. North Carolina posted the largest loss in condition with a five percentage point decline. Florida condition sagged by three points.
The spring wheat condition actually showed a one point increase in condition, but it still languishes with only 10 percent rated to good to excellent. However, the crop condition has less meaning now that 17 percent of the spring wheat harvest is already complete with South Dakota over half done at 53 percent taken out of the field - well ahead of its 37 percent average by this time of year due to the ravages of this year’s drought.
The nation’s winter wheat harvest is coming down the home stretch with 91 percent of the nation’s crop now cut. In the Plains, Nebraska is almost finished at 95 percent complete while South Dakota winter wheat is 91 percent cut out.
Pasture conditions saw big drops in condition rating throughout the majority of the central U.S. South Dakota pasture land dropped an amazing nine percentage points bringing its good to excellent rating down to only TWO! Nebraska took a six point hit to its pasture condition. Oklahoma and Colorado managed to increase two points in their rating while North Dakota picked up a point but still stands at only THREE. The worst pasture rating in the central U.S. belongs to Montana as it dropped yet one more point and now only shows ONE single point in the good to excellent categories combined! An amazing 96 percent of Montana’s pasture land is rated as poor to very poor!
Washington state continues to rule the topsoil moisture deficit rating as it dropped one final point to where it now has achieved a 100 percent short to very short rating in the top four inches of soil statewide. Montana is in much the same condition at 98 percent short to very short.
Montana does, however, maintain the dubious honor of having the top spot on the subsoil moisture deficit table with a rating of 97 percent short to very short. Washington state checks in with a 95 short to very short subsoil moisture rating.
