USDA Weekly Crop Progress Report - 4% of Corn, 1% of Soybeans Planted

OMAHA (DTN) -- Farmers made little headway planting corn and soybeans last week as winterlike weather returned to much of the Midwest and Northern Plains, USDA NASS reported in its weekly Crop Progress report on Monday. In addition, dry weather in major winter-wheat-growing regions eroded the crop's condition last week.

CORN

-- Planting Progress: 4% nationwide as of Sunday, April 17, up just 2 percentage points from the previous week, 3 percentage points behind last year's 7% and 2% points behind the five-year average of 6%.

-- States at the top and bottom last week: Texas led the way in corn-planting progress at 64%. On the low end of other states that had started planting, Nebraska and Pennsylvania reported just 2% of corn planted. Several other states reported no progress, including Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota and Wisconsin.

SOYBEANS

-- Planting Progress: 1% nationwide as of Sunday. That was 2 percentage points behind last year's 3% and slightly behind the five-year average of 2%.

-- States at the top and bottom last week: Louisiana reported the most progress at 23%. On the low end of states that had started planting were Kansas and Tennessee, at 1% complete. Several other states reported no planting progress, including Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska and Ohio.

WINTER WHEAT

-- Crop development progress: 7% of the winter wheat crop was headed nationwide as of Sunday. That's 2 percentage points behind last year's 9% and 5 percentage points behind the five-year average of 12%.

-- States at the top and bottom last week: California's winter wheat crop was the furthest along at 65% headed. Texas wheat was next furthest along at 30%. Of the other states reporting winter wheat heading, the lowest was Missouri, with just 1% of winter wheat headed compared to its five-year average of 7%. Other major winter-wheat-producing states reported no wheat headed, including Kansas, Nebraska and Oklahoma.

-- Crop condition: Nationwide, winter wheat was rated 30% good to excellent, dropping 2 percentage points from 32% the previous week. The current rating is well below last year's good-to-excellent rating of 53%.

"The current rating also matches the lowest rating at this time of year and equal to the 30% at this time in 2018," said DTN Senior Analyst Dana Mantini. "Winter wheat condition ratings in Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas all declined from last week, and are at 33%, 21% and 6% good to excellent, respectively, with Oklahoma falling 8 percentage points from a week ago. Montana is just 16% good to excellent and 30% very poor to poor."