NAPERVILLE, Illinois, April 23 (Reuters) - U.S. Crop Watch producers are off to an efficient start on corn and soybean planting as moisture levels have largely recovered from last summer’s dry spell, making for decent early soil conditions.
Progress may come to a widespread halt later this week and over the weekend with heavy rains, potentially exceeding 3 inches (76 mm), focused on the center of the Corn Belt. Producers are not yet worried that any significant delays will result.
Crop Watch follows 11 corn and 11 soybean fields across nine U.S. states, including two each in Iowa and Illinois. This is the seventh consecutive year for the project, featuring the same producers and locations as last year. In 2021, Crop Watch was expanded to 11 producers from eight previously.
Weekly reports, which include crop ratings, weather updates and photos, will start after the subject fields have emerged. For now, producers are reporting that planting pace is average to slightly ahead for their areas with only Kansas corn and western Illinois soybean efforts considered fast.
As of Tuesday, seven of the 22 Crop Watch fields had been planted, four of them soybeans. That is identical to the seven fields, four soy on the same date in 2021, but more than in 2023 and 2022, when five and three total fields had been planted, respectively.
An eighth field, the Minnesota corn, was in progress as of late Tuesday. Planted fields include corn in Kansas, Indiana and Nebraska, and soybeans in western Illinois, western Iowa, Indiana and southeastern Illinois.
Up to five more fields could be finished by the end of April, weather permitting, which would keep with the efficient 2021 pace. Crop Watch planting wrapped the earliest in 2021, with the final two fields sown on May 18.
On Monday, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s statistics service estimated U.S. corn planting at 12% complete, up from 6% a week earlier and ahead of a 10% five-year average. Soybeans were 7% planted versus 3% last week and 4% on average.
CONDITIONS AND PLANS
Almost all Crop Watch producers report adequate to ideal soil moisture conditions. Soils are very dry in Kansas, and topsoil is good in Nebraska, though subsoil moisture is near empty. Western Illinois fields are drier than normal, too.
At this time a year ago, most Crop Watch producers were also reporting great soil moisture conditions that were excellent for planting, but those deteriorated by mid-summer amid one of the driest-ever Junes. Abundant early July rainfall saved the crop, helping corn yield to a national record in 2023.
In North Dakota, where corn, soybean and other crop acreage tend to swing from year to year, the Crop Watch producer has cut some planned spring wheat acreage in favor of soybeans. Some specialty crop acres in his area are also likely to go to soybeans.
The South Dakota producer has heard rumblings of some corn acres possibly going to beans, and the Ohio producer mentioned that more beans will be planted where cash is tight.
On the other hand, the Kansas producer says that if dryness persists, some soybean acres are likely to be allocated to grain sorghum instead. The recent dryness has caused winter wheat conditions to drop in his area.
The El Nino weather pattern typically brings more rain to Kansas in the spring, but the state’s central agricultural district, where the Crop Watch fields are located, have been drier than last year. Since March 1, the district’s precipitation is 21% of normal versus 30% in the same period a year ago. Temperatures have been much warmer, too.
USDA’s latest progress report reflected wheat’s recent struggles, as national winter wheat conditions tumbled to 50% good-to-excellent as of Sunday from 55% a week earlier. Analysts had expected 54% with a low of 52%, but the latest rating is still well above the year-ago 26%.
Winter wheat conditions in Kansas dropped to 36% good-to-excellent versus 43% a week earlier and 14% a year earlier. Karen Braun is a market analyst for Reuters. Views expressed above are her own.
(Editing by Leslie Adler)
