Crop update: Nebraska corn 31 percent good to excellent

In its weekly crop progress report today, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said 31 percent of Nebraska’s corn crop was in good to excellent condition as of August 12. This is down four points from our last update on July 30.

Nebraska corn in fair condition stood at 28 percent (unchanged from two weeks ago), while corn in poor to very poor condition stood at 41 percent (up 4 points from two weeks ago).

USDA said 86 percent of the state's crop is in the dough stage, up from 76 percent last week and well ahead of 51 percent last year and the five-year average of 58 percent.

Corn that was dented stood at 51 percent across the state, well ahead of last year's 7 percent and the five-year average of 14 percent. USDA said 6 percent of the state's crop is mature, up from 3 percent last week. None of the crop was mature by this point last year – or in the five-year average.

Early planting and the hot, dry weather is showing it's head in all these figures.

Nationally, 23 percent of the country's corn is in good to excellent condition, unchanged from last week but well below last year's 60 percent. Corn rated fair stood at 26 percent, compared to 27 percent last week and 25 percent last year, while 51 percent of the crop was rated poor to very poor, compared to 50 percent last week and 15 percent last year.

USDA said 78 percent of the country's corn crop was in the dough stage, well ahead of last year's 46 percent and the five-year average of 49 percent. Corn dented stood at 42 percent, compared to 14 percent last year and 16 percent for the average. USDA said 10 percent of the country's corn crop was mature, up from 6 percent last year and 3 percent on average.


This week's photos come from the Nebraska Corn Board's 2012 crop progress photo set at Flickr. The top photo was taken by the Imperial FFA chapter in late July and the bottom one by the Norris FFA chapter more recently that shows some corn harvested for silage.