NASS Crop Progress Report

Monday afternoon the USDA NASS released the weekly Crop Progress Report. It confirmed just how far behind normal development both corn and beans are this year. Only 8 percent of the U.S. corn crop is silking. Normal would be 32 percent. Looking at the big corn producing states is even more revealing. Illinois is just 4 percent silking while in 2018 it was 71 percent, Indiana is only 1 percent silking while last year it was 45 percent and Iowa is only 1 percent and last year it was 31 percent.

Beans are way behind in blooming too with just 10 percent of the beans are blooming. Average would be 32 percent and in 2018 it was 44 percent. Last year 61 percent of the Illinois bean crop was blooming while this year it is 1 percent. Indiana's beans are also at 1 percent and average would be 32 percent. In Minnesota and Wisconsin no beans are blooming yet!

The overall condition rating for corn as of last Sunday was 57 percent good to excellent. That was up 1 percent in the good to excellent category. Traders expected a much larger increase in the good to excellent category. Bean conditions actually slipped 1 percent in the good to excellent to 53 percent good to excellent. There was another shocking number in the Crop Progress Report. As of last Sunday there were still 8 million acres of beans yet to be planted or had not emerged yet!