News & Resources

USDA Weekly Crop Progress Report

13 May 2024

This article was originally published at 3:03 p.m. CDT on Monday, May 13. It was last updated with additional information at 3:51 p.m. CDT on Monday, May 13.

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OMAHA (DTN) -- Corn planting was about halfway finished nationwide by the end of last week but continued to trail the five-year average pace as wet conditions across parts of the Corn Belt kept some farmers out of their fields, USDA NASS said in its latest weekly Crop Progress report released on Monday.

A continuing active weather pattern this week with more chances of rain could further delay planting for some, according to DTN Ag Meteorologist John Baranick.

CORN

-- Planting progress: Corn planting moved ahead 13 percentage points last week to reach 49% complete nationwide as of Sunday, May 12. Despite the faster planting pace, though, planting progress overall was 11 percentage points behind last year's 60% and 5 points behind the five-year average of 54%. "Iowa's corn is 57% planted, and Illinois is at 42%," noted DTN Senior Analyst Dana Mantini. "Pennsylvania and South Dakota are the laggards at 29% and 32% planted, respectively."

-- Crop development: 23% of corn had emerged as of Sunday, 2 points behind last year but 2 points ahead of the five-year average of 21%.

SOYBEANS

-- Planting progress: Soybean planting managed to stay just ahead of the average pace last week with 35% of the crop planted nationwide as of Sunday. That was 10 percentage points behind last year's pace of 45% and 1 percentage point ahead of the five-year average of 34%. "Illinois soybeans are 39% planted, and Iowa is 39% planted," Mantini said. "North and South Dakota are lagging at 7% and 17% planted, respectively."

-- Crop development: 16% of soybeans had emerged as of Sunday, 1 point behind last year but 6 points ahead of the five-year average of 10%.

WINTER WHEAT

-- Crop development: 57% of winter wheat was headed as of Sunday. That was 11 points ahead of 46% at this time last year and 13 points ahead of the five-year average of 44%.

-- Crop condition: 50% of the crop was rated in good-to-excellent condition, unchanged from the previous week and still up significantly from 29% a year ago. The percentage of the crop rated very poor to poor rose slightly from 16% the previous week to 18% last week. "Kansas had the highest very-poor-to-poor rating of 41%," Mantini.

DTN will be taking a closer look at and reporting on the condition of Kansas' winter wheat crop during this week's Wheat Quality Council 2024 Hard Winter Wheat Tour. For more details on the tour, see "Winter Wheat Tour Kicks Off in Kansas" here: https://www.dtnpf.com/….

SPRING WHEAT

-- Planting progress: 61% of spring wheat was planted as of Sunday, 26 points ahead of 35% last year and 13 points ahead of the five-year average of 48%. "North Dakota spring wheat is 49% planted, well above its five-year average of 34% for this time of year, and Minnesota spring wheat is 71% planted compared to the average of 41%," Mantini said.

-- Crop development: 25% of spring wheat has emerged, 14 points ahead of 11% last year and 7 points ahead of the five-year average of 18%.

THE WEEK AHEAD IN WEATHER

An active weather pattern will continue this week, bringing more chances of rain to parts of the U.S., possibly further delaying planting progress for some farmers, according to DTN Ag Meteorologist John Baranick.

"We had some limited breaks in the action last week and weekend that might have been beneficial for some, but others stayed wet and were unable to go out," Baranick said. "But the active weather pattern unfortunately continues this week. We've already seen a system move out of the Central and Southern Plains where it produced some beneficial rain over drought areas this weekend. That should help wheat conditions at least somewhat. But that system will continue to trek across the southern end of the Corn Belt through Wednesday, producing areas of mostly light to moderate rain. Some pockets of heavier rain will probably keep some more folks out of their fields.

"That system is followed by several little systems or disturbances coming from the Canadian Prairies through the weekend. It's hard to count all the little features, but there are three or four of them that will roll through the Corn Belt throughout the week with varying degrees of scattered showers and thunderstorms. For most areas, the showers will be an annoyance to fieldwork, especially those in the western half of the Corn Belt where they should be more fragmented and where soil isn't terribly wet in too many areas. For eastern areas, this will be more of a setback, especially after the early week rainfall. Again, nothing terribly heavy, but when falling over wetter ground, it will cause more of a setback. Wheat areas in the southwestern Plains that benefited from the weekend rain will get a few chances for more this week as well with those disturbances moving through.

"Those across the far South, and Gulf Coast especially, may find all this rain to bring flooding amounts as well as some severe weather."

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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.

National Crop Progress Summary
This Last Last 5-Year
Week Week Year Avg.
Corn Planted 49 36 60 54
Corn Emerged 23 12 25 21
Soybeans Planted 35 25 45 34
Soybeans Emerged 16 9 17 10
Winter Wheat Headed 57 43 46 44
Spring Wheat Planted 61 47 35 48
Spring Wheat Emerged 25 12 11 18
Cotton Planted 33 24 31 31
Sorghum Planted 26 23 27 26
Oats Planted 78 70 67 72
Oats Emerged 59 49 50 52
Barley Planted 64 47 47 60
Barley Emerged 27 14 15 27
Rice Planted 84 78 80 72
Rice Emerged 69 60 62 51

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National Crop Condition Summary
(VP=Very Poor; P=Poor; F=Fair; G=Good; E=Excellent)
This Week Last Week Last Year
VP P F G E VP P F G E VP P F G E
Winter Wheat 6 12 32 42 8 5 11 34 44 6 18 23 30 25 4
Rice - 1 20 68 11 - 1 18 68 13 - 4 26 59 11
Oat 4 6 27 56 7 NA NA NA NA NA 8 11 37 40 4

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

Following on social platform X @AGrederDTN