Crop update: Nearly 50% of Nebraska corn planted

Corn planting in Nebraska reached 48 percent complete, USDA said this afternoon. That's up from 23 percent last week and is equal to the planting pace of a year ago. It is ahead of the five-year average of 37 percent planted by this date.

Nationally, 68 percent of the crop is in the ground -- up from 50 percent last week and 32 percent a year ago. The five-year average is 40 percent planted at this point, so farmers are 28 points ahead of the average!

As for emergence, you can "row" corn on 3 percent of Nebraska acres, up from 1 percent last week and equal to last year -- although the sun and warm weather in the forecast this week will give that a boost. Nationally, 19 percent of the crop has emerged, up from 7 percent last week, 4 percent last year and the five-year average of 9 percent.

The photo above was emailed in from Nebraska Corn Board member Mark Jagels (@markjagels on Twitter), who farms near Davenport. He's finished planting corn and has moved on to soybeans, which he is planting here. He's practicing no-till and is planting the soybeans right over top of last year's corn stubble.

The second photo comes from Randy Uhrmacher (@Cornfrmr on Twitter), a member of the Nebraska Corn Growers who farms near Juniata. Uhrmacher is also done with corn and today is no-tilling soybeans into corn stubble. He posted this photo on his farm's Facebook page this afternoon.

(Soybean planting in Nebraska is 8 percent complete - compared to 6 percent last week and 4 percent for the five-year average.)