USDA Crop Progress Report - 4% of Corn Remains in Fields; Wheat Condition Holds Steady

OMAHA (DTN) -- The U.S. soybean harvest wrapped up last week and just 4% of the nation's corn crop remained in fields, USDA NASS reported in its weekly Crop Progress report on Monday.

CORN

-- Harvest progress: 96% of corn was harvested as of Sunday, Nov. 20, up 3 percentage points from 93% the previous week. This year's harvest progress is now 2 percentage points ahead of last year's 94% and 6 percentage points ahead of the five-year average of 90%. "Farmers in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan still have work to do, as is typical for this time of year," said DTN Lead Analyst Todd Hultman.

WINTER WHEAT

-- Crop development: 87% of winter wheat was emerged as of Sunday, 2 percentage points ahead of last year's 85% and 1 percentage point ahead of the five-year average of 86%. "South Dakota's emerged winter wheat crops are 10 percentage points below the five-year average for emerged crops, Illinois crops are 8 percentage points below the usual pace and Kansas crops are 7 percentage points below," Hultman said.

-- Crop condition: 32% of the crop was rated in good-to-excellent condition, unchanged from the previous week but 12 percentage points below last year's rating of 44% good to excellent. That is the lowest good-to-excellent rating for the crop for this time of year in over 20 years, Hultman noted.

WEEK AHEAD IN WEATHER

Temperatures that are closer to normal for this time of year but also the possibility for storm systems to move across the country over Thanksgiving are on tap this coming week, according to DTN Ag Meteorologist John Baranick.

"The weather this week is at least a bit warmer," Baranick said. "Temperatures are going to be much closer to normal for this time of year than what we saw last week and weekend. The upper-level pattern has also become more progressive, which will allow storm systems to more freely move through the country.

"One of those could occur over the Thanksgiving holiday. The European model has a system forming in the eastern Plains Wednesday night and moving eastward and developing nicely as it moves through the Eastern states Thursday and Friday. This brings widespread precipitation, mostly in the form of rain, though we could see some snow mixing in across the Midwest.

However, the American GFS model completely disagrees, holding back that system across Texas on Thursday and Friday and not bringing precipitation eastward until the weekend. It is interesting because both of these outcomes have some validity to them, but it is unusual that they are so different only two to three days out from the event.

"Either way, though, the western Plains drought areas are unlikely to see much of any precipitation, which continues to hurt any wheat that has not yet gone dormant. Temperatures above normal in these areas later this week and weekend could wake up any wheat that has gone into more of a winter mode, as well, as daytime highs reach up into the 50s and 60s degrees Fahrenheit."