Agricultural News
Corn, Soybean and Pasture Crop Ratings All Slip in Latest Week
Mon, 25 Jun 2012 16:22:52 CDT
For the third week in a row, the nation's corn and soybean conditions declined on USDA's weekly Crop Progress and Condition report. Corn in the very poor to poor category increased five percentage points to 14% and corn rated good-to-excellent dropped 7 percentage points to 56%.
Ten percent of the corn crop is silking, compared to 5% last week and a 3% average. Scott Newsom with DTN says "This means the crop continues to mature during the worst of this year's hot and dry weather conditions."
Soybean conditions also plunged, with the percent of the crop rated very poor to poor increasing three percentage points to 15% and the portion of the crop rated good to excellent falling a like amount.
For the 2012 Soybean crop, "The steady decline continues to indicate a less likely chance of the crop making trendline yield," Newsom said.
Blooming came in at 12% as compared to the five-year average of 4%, reflecting a crop that is maturing ahead of pace while weather conditions remain hot and dry.
The soybean crop is 12% bloomed, compared to 5% last week and a 4% average. "Blooming figures reflect a crop that is maturing ahead of pace while weather conditions remain hot and dry," Newsom said.
The US cotton crop is looking significantly better than it did a year ago- in 2011, 41% of the crop was rated poor to very poor at this point in June- this week, the Crop Progress report has the major cotton states showing 16% poor to very poor. The vast majority of the cotton crop falls into the fair to good range- 74 percent this year versus 56 percent in those categories in 2011.
Finally, pasture and range conditions are in worst shape compared to June 2011- a year ago, the national poor to very poor rating nationally stood at 26%- a week ago it was at 28% and this week sees a slippage downward to 34 percent in the poor to very poor ratings. New Mexico was awful a year ago, with an eighty seven percent poor to very poor rating in 2011- and this year they remain awful at ninety percent in the poor to very poor rating. The second worst state in the country this year in pasture ratings is Arkansas- with a 73% poor to very poor rating- just ahead of Arizona at 72% poor to very poor.
Our neighbors in Missouri are also facing real pasture conditions for their beef and dairy cow herds- pegged at 58% poor to very poor as summer starts- a year ago, they had a zero very poor rating and only four percent in the poor category.
Oklahoma was at 52 percent poor to very poor in 2011 in late June- just ahead of the scorching July and August we would face- this year the poor to very poor ratings for pasture and range conditions across the Sooner state stand at just 17%.
For the complete crop Progress report released by USDA on Monday afternoon, June 25- click here.
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