Late, But Great: Seven In Ten Missouri Corn Plants Rated Good Or Excellent
Slower than normal planting progress and steady rains have not deterred a strong start to corn quality conditions for Missouri this season. The first quality ratings from USDA released with this week’s Crop Progress report show 71 percent of the crop in good to excellent shape, up 14 points from a year ago. Six percent of the crop is rated poor or very poor. However, conditions had initially started out even stronger, with USDA suggesting that 77 percent of the crop was good to excellent on Memorial Day. Corn planting is 95 percent complete, with 86 percent of the crop emerged.
Soybean planting has reached 61 percent complete as of Sunday, in line with the five-year average but two points behind a year ago. 44 percent of beans have emerged, two points off the normal pace and three behind a year ago. The first one percent of winter wheat has been harvested in the past week. Above-average rainfall in the past week did weaken the crop, as 62 percent is considered good or excellent, down seven points, while six percent is rated poor.
In the Bootheel, the first two percent of cotton is squaring, half the normal pace, while planting is 96 percent complete. Rice planting is also at 96 percent, with emergence at 81 percent. Both figures are behind a year ago. Slightly weaker conditions were also reported, with 59 percent of cotton rated good against 18 percent poor or very poor, and 59 percent of rice rated good to excellent versus nine percent poor.
Pastures posted another week of improved quality, with 73 percent in good or excellent shape, an improvement of five points. Just one percent of fields are considered poor. Half of Missouri’s alfalfa has received its first cutting, 12 points ahead of a year ago but four points behind the normal pace. One-fourth of other hay has been cut, five points ahead of last year but four points behind average. 11 percent of Missouri farmers have a reported shortage of hay supply, compared to five percent with a surplus. However, one in six farmers have a surplus of stock water. Almost one-fourth of topsoil and 13 percent of subsoil have a surplus of moisture, compared to shortages in two percent of topsoil and three percent of subsoil.
3.5 days were suitable for fieldwork last week. Temperatures and rainfall were above average, with the average temperature just over 70 degrees and precipitation averaging 1.38″.
