Nebraska corn harvest 74% complete

The U.S. Department of Agriculture reported today that 74 percent of what may shape up to be Nebraska’s second-largest corn crop on record was in the bin – with harvest progress up 24 points from last week and nearly double the five-year average. It's also nearly five times faster than last year's progress, which stood at a mere 15 percent thanks to cool, wet weather.

Nationally, USDA said 83 percent of the corn crop was harvested, up from 68 percent last week and well ahead of the 49 percent five-year average. A year ago only 20 percent of the crop was harvested and farmers were looking at harvesting in all sorts of weather well into December and January.

Reports from other states: Iowa is 86 percent complete (ahead of 39 percent for the five-year average), Illinois is 97 percent complete (63 percent), Minnesota is 77 percent complete (41 percent), Indiana is 96 percent complete (51 percent) and South Dakota is 64 percent complete (33 percent).

Although rain may move through parts of the region this week, a couple of central Nebraska farmers who hadn't yet wrapped up harvest and were contacted last Friday were OK with the prospect of being forced from the fields for a day or two. After all, it's been one of the quickest – if not the quickest – harvest on record thanks to dry, sunny weather.

Of course, they may have wrapped up over the weekend since it was dry in most parts of the state.

This week's photos, from the Nebraska Corn Board's crop progress set on Flickr, feature photos submitted by the Imperial FFA Chapter (top) and the Sumner Eddyville Miller FFA Chapter (bottom two). Just click on an image to enlarge it.

For more details, be sure to check out the Nebraska Corn Board's crop progress update.