Planting Delays Leads to Reality of Smaller Crops

(LUBBOCK, TX) Planting delays are real, and the question now becomes whether the United States can and will reach targets suggested earlier this year by USDA. In their latest Crop Progress Report, the National Agriculture Statistics Service says less than 80 percent of the nation’s corn crop is planted. This is due to major delays (of 15 percentage points or more) from Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, Ohio, South Dakota, and Wisconsin. Soybean planting is also well behind schedule as only 77 percent of the nation’s crop is expected to be in the ground today. The same seven states are drastically behind the normal planting schedule and concerns are growing that farmers may have to abandon millions of acres of both crops due to the excessively wet spring. Though cotton planting is catching up to the five-year average (89 percent compared to an average of 94 percent), Missouri and Oklahoma are both in danger of losing tens of thousands of acres due to the weather conditions. AccuWeather predicts corn yields will be more than eleven percent lower, and soybean yields off more than four percent from USDA’s April estimate.