Was your corn knee high by the Fourth of July? Based on USDA crop data, most of the country’s corn more than exceeded this time-honored measure.
The most recent Crop Progress report, released last Monday, shows 30 percent of the monitored corn crop silking. This is above the previous five-year average of 27 percent for the week. It is additionally well above last year’s progress at only 19 percent.
Unfortunately, this year’s corn is not doing as well as last year’s, even if it has developed more quickly. Ten percent of the corn crop last week was in poor or very poor condition. The same time last year, only 5 percent of the crop rated that badly. Similarly, this year sees 65 percent of the crop as in good or excellent condition, compared with last year’s 76 percent.
Unsurprisingly, a good portion of the decline in the nation’s overall corn crop condition comes from the Dakotas. The states, along with Montana, are currently facing concentrated drought conditions that developed quickly in late May and through June.
North Dakota’s crop was 20 percent poor or very poor, and South Dakota saw 28 percent of its crop in that condition. This compares to the same time last year when 5 percent of the North Dakota crop and 9 percent of the South Dakota crop were so badly off.
Despite this condition situation, the most recent World Agricultural Supply and Demands Estimates (WASDE) report upped its estimated planted and harvested corn acres projected a new-crop production of 14.26 billion bushels (bb). The projected yield remained the same at 170.7 bushels per acre from previous reports.
Several elements moved in corn between the June WASDE and the July WASDE, beginning with the year’s beginning stocks of oldcrop corn. The category gained 75 million bushels in estimated stores, bringing the total to 2.37 bb. Expected feed and residual use and ending stocks for this year grew to absorb the increased supply.
