Corn planting surges ahead
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The percent of planted corn in the United States doubled this week as the USDA showed in its weekly Crop Progress report. Producers in the nation’s top 18 producing states were able to surge forward to 7 percent this week, which is more than double from last week’s report of 3 percent. This week’s national average is also well above the five-year average of 2 percent and last year’s pace of 3 percent.
Texas remains in the lead with 52 percent of corn in the ground, which is slightly below the state’s report from 2011 (55 percent) and their five-year average (54 percent). Tennessee showed the biggest difference from last week’s report, jumping 31 percentage points to 46 percent.
Kentucky (32 percent), North Carolina (25 percent), Missouri (23 percent) and Illinois (17 percent) also saw impressive increases from the April 2 report. Presently 89 percent of the reporting states are in the process of planting corn, with just North Dakota and Wisconsin reporting no planted corn.
Overall, six states are reporting a higher percentage than the national average, and two states are within one percentage point of the national average. At this time last year just 10 states had reported any progress in corn planting.
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