It’s Tuesday, US weekly crop progress report time. US corn sowing is underway with 38% of the crop now in the ground. Southern states are making some very good progress but generally the whole crops is going in very quickly, even though the central corn belt has seen falls of 20-60mm over the last week.
Soybean sowing progress is also moving along nicely at 33% complete.
Cotton is now estimated at 21% sown, just a little ahead of the average pace of 19% for this time of year.
Sorghum sowing is bang on the 5 year average at 22% sown, Texas leading the way at 69% complete, Kansas just 5% sown.
70% of the Kansas hard red winter wheat crop is now in head. This is well above the 5 year average pace of 28%. Dry weather in Kansas is now pushing the crop to maturity very quickly. The Good / Excellent rating for the Kansas crop is stable at just 22%. The Poor / Very Poor rating was 41% last week, this week it is 44%. Light showers across parts of Kansas were unable to stop a further deterioration in the crops already doing it tough.
The US national winter wheat crop condition rating improved 1pt, from 25/5 – 30% G/E to 26/5 31% G/E. The good finish across much of the soft red winter wheat belt is somewhat countering the poor finish across Kansas and the Panhandle for HRWW.
Spring wheat sowing progressed at 32% sown, just behind the 5 year average but of no concern. North Dakota is dry, seeing just 60-80% of normal rainfall over the last month. The dry weather in the US now stretches from SE Saskatchewan (SW Sask is actually pretty good) to the Texas high plains. Nebraska and Kansas are of particular concern. There is rain in the 7 day forecast for those regions though with, 20-50mm expected to fall across Kansas and Nebraska late in the week.
US weekly wheat export inspections were towards the higher end of trade estimates prior to release of the report. At 434kt it is not enough to meet the weekly target set by the USDA but it is better than last week and keeps the export loading pace at 12% ahead of last year.