Corn Condition Off to Best Start Since 2021

USAgNet - 06/12/2024

Progressive Farmer's Anthony Greder reported last week that "the condition of the U.S. corn crop is starting off significantly better this year than it did last year, USDA NASS reported in its weekly Crop Progress on Monday."

"In its first condition rating of the season for corn, NASS estimated that 75% of the crop was in good-to-excellent condition, 11 percentage points higher than 64% a year ago," Greder reported. "Only 4% of the crop was rated very poor to poor compared to 6% last year."

Reuters' Karen Braun reported earlier on Monday that "a straight five-year average of initial U.S. corn conditions is 69% good-to-excellent. The 10-year average is 71% and the 10-year Olympic average, discarding the high of 79% in 2018 and the 59% low from 2019, yields 72% GE."

Braun wrote on the social media platform X that "U.S. corn starting at 75% good-to-excellent is the 6th best start of the last 20 years and the best since 2021." She and agriculture economist Scott Irwin of farmdoc did warn, however, that with more than 25% of the corn crop not yet emerged, "anything can happen from this point--great crop, good crop, bad crop."

Braun reported earlier on Monday -- before the crop condition ratings were released -- that farmers in her U.S. Crop Watch series (which follows 11 corn and 11 soybean fields across nine U.S. states) rated "their corn health below that of recent years."

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