73 percent of Nebraska corn in good to excellent condition

The U.S. Department of Agriculture said today that 73 percent of Nebraska's corn crop was in good to excellent condition for the week ending June 5. It said 25 percent of the crop was in fair condition and only 2 percent was rated poor. None of the crop was in the very poor category.

As for emergence, USDA said 88 percent of the crop had emerged, up 11 points from last week but 7 points behind the five-year average. Warmer weather over the weekend and this week, though, will get things up and growing pretty quickly.

Nationally, USDA said 94 percent of the corn crop was planted, up from last week’s 86 percent and only 4 points behind the five-year average of 98 percent planted by this date. Good progress was made in several states, including Ohio (from 19 to 58 percent planted in the last week), North Dakota (87 percent planted), Indiana (82 percent planted) and Michigan (82 percent planted).

Because of the late planting in many areas, only 79 percent of the crop nationwide has emerged, compared to the five-year average of 90 percent. Overall crop conditions, though, are pretty good, with 67 percent of the country's corn crop in good to excellent condition (up 4 points from last week), 27 percent fair and 6 percent poor to very poor. A year ago, 76 percent of the crop was in good to excellent condition.

For photos of this year's crop progress, be sure to check out the Nebraska Corn Board's 2011 crop progress photo set on Flickr.

For more details of the crop, visit the Corn Board's Crop Progress Update page.