Nebraska corn crop 77% good to excellent, 51% dented

The U.S. Department of Agriculture said today that 51 percent of Nebraska's corn crop was dented, a 20-point jump from last week, although that number is 10 points behind the five-year average and 16 points behind last year.

Corn in the dough stage reached 93 percent, which is 1 point ahead of average but 5 points behind last year. Corn rated mature entered the charts at 1 percent, off from the 3 percent average and last year’s 2 percent.

As for overall crop condition, USDA said 77 percent of Nebraska's crop was rated good to excellent, which is up 2 points from two weeks ago. That leaves 16 percent of the crop as fair and 7 percent as poor to very poor.

The Midwest crop tour organized by Pro Farmer wrapped up last week. The editors estimated Nebraska’s corn yield at 165 bushels per acre for this year, which is 1 bushel per acre below USDA’s August estimate for the state.

The Pro Farmer editors said Nebraska had good ear length and solid weight but that there were some missing years, with ear counts down about 2 percent from last year. Yet should that 165 bushels be realized, Nebraska farmers would still harvest a record 1.59 billion bushel crop (USDA’s August estimate was 1.60 billion bushels).

Harvest will soon be upon us — and all the various yield estimates circulating can be put to rest with some solid harvest data and real yields straight from the field.

This week's photos come from the Nebraska Corn Board's Chinese Trade Team set on Flickr. The trade team was on a portion of the Pro Farmer crop tour, including the leg that went through Nebraska (click for more). Along the way they stopped at Dave Nielsen's farm near Lincoln. Nielsen is a member of the Nebraska Corn Board.
 

Dave Nielsen (fourth from left) and his dad Wayne (center)
with the trade team from China.