Crop update: Nebraska corn harvest 53% complete

The U.S. Department of Agriculture said today that 53 percent of Nebraska's corn crop was harvested as of yesterday. That's up from 36 percent harvested last week. It's also significantly ahead of the 10 percent harvested last year at this time and the 10 percent harvested for the average over the last five years.

USDA said 93 percent of the state's crop was mature, up from 87 percent last week and 68 percent last year. The five-year average for this week is 67 percent mature.

Soybeans harvested in Nebraska stood at 48 percent, compared to the average pace of 16 percent harvested.

Kelly Brunkhorst at the Nebraska Corn Board said if you look at corn and soybean harvest progress over the last week, Nebraska farmers harvested nearly 3 million acres (totaled together) this past week. (Iowa farmers harvested nearly 5.5 million acres combined of corn and soybeans.)

If you look back to planting progress in April, there was a week Nebraska farmers planted 3.1 million acres of corn and Iowa farmers planted 6 million acres – so farmers are harvesting almost as fast as they planted this spring!

Nationally, 54 percent of the country's corn crop was harvested, up from 39 percent last week. A year ago 18 percent of the crop was harvested by this date, while the five-year average is 20 percent harvested.

USDA said 94 percent of the country's crop was mature, compared to 88 percent last week, 74 percent last year and 72 percent for the average.

The national soybean harvest stood at 41 percent complete, up from 22 percent last week, 15 percent last year and 19 percent for the five-year average.

The photo above comes from the Nebraska Corn Board's 2012 crop progress photo set at Flick, while the graphic below was created by Brunkhorst.