Nebraska corn 56 percent good to excellent, 25 percent silking

In its weekly crop progress report issued today, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said 56 percent of Nebraska’s corn crop was in good to excellent condition as of July 1. Hot, dry weather has pushed this number lower over the last two weeks – both here in Nebraska and across the country.

Nebraska corn in fair condition stood at 29 percent, while corn in poor to very poor condition stood at 15 percent.

Nationally, corn in good to excellent condition stood at 48 percent, while corn rated fair was 30 percent and corn in the poor to very poor categories stood at 22 percent. Last week, 56 percent of the crop was rated good to excellent, 30 percent fair and 14 percent poor to very poor. A year ago, 69 percent was rated good to excellent, 22 percent fair and only 9 percent poor to very poor. 

USDA also said 25 percent of Nebraska's corn crop is silking. That's well ahead of the five-year average of 2 percent. A year ago none of the state's crop had yet reached the silking stage.

Nationally, 25 percent of the crop is silking, also well ahead of the 8 percent average and 5 percent last year.

Planted acreage numbers
Nebraska’s family corn farmers planted 9.9 million acres this year, USDA said last week in its acreage report. That’s up slightly from the 9.85 million acres planted last year, although it is a bit lower than the March planting intentions estimate of 10.3 million acres.

Nationally, corn acres were estimated at 96.4 million, up 5 percent from last year and the most since 1937.

Less corn in storage
In its quarterly grain stocks report, USDA said last week there was 355.2 million bushels of corn being stored in all positions in Nebraska, down 18.4 percent from 2011. On farm stocks were at 170.0 million bushels, down 10.5 percent, while off-farm storage was at 185.2 million, down 24.4 percent.

Nationally, stocks in all positions as of June 1 totaled 3.2 billion bushels, down 14 percent from a year ago. Of the total, 1.5 billion bushels were stored on farms while off-farm stocks stood at 1.7 billion bushels. The March-May 2012 indicated disappearance was 2.87 billion bushels, compared with 2.85 billion bushels during the same period last year.