Nebraska corn 85 percent good to excellent

The U.S. Department of Agriculture said today that 85 percent of Nebraska’s corn crop was in good to excellent condition for the week ending July 3, up from 79 percent a week ago. Only 12 percent of the crop was listed as fair and only 3 percent listed as poor or very poor this week.

The report said no Nebraska corn was silking, but that is not a surprise because cool weather early in the growing season has the crop behind by about a week. A year ago 6 percent of the crop was silking, while the five-year average is 5 percent silking by this point.

Warm weather last week allowed the crop to advance very quickly and warm weather with timely rains this week will quickly move the crop to the silking stage.

Nationally, USDA said 69 percent of the crop is in good to excellent condition, with 22 percent fair and 9 percent poor to very poor. A week ago those figures were 68, 23 and 9 percent, respectively. A year ago they were 71, 19 and 10 percent, respectively.

Silking across the country is also behind the average -- with only 6 percent of the country's corn crop reaching that stage by July 3. A year ago that figure was 18 percent while the five-year average is 12 percent.

This week's photo comes from the Howells-Clarkson FFA Chapter and shows off some great looking corn stalks. For more photos, be sure to check out the Nebraska Corn Board's 2011 crop progress photo set on Flickr.

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