This weeks USDA weekly crop progress report shows corn planting has progressed to 93% sown, all but done. Corn emergence sits at 76%, and the condition of the US corn crop is rated at 67% Good / Excellent. This is the first rating of the season, and compares to 69% this time last year. Only 5% of the US corn crop is rated Poor / Very Poor.
Soybeans sit at 87% sown, 65% emerged, and is rated at 66% G/E. Cotton is 66% sown, 7% squaring. Sorghum is now 44% sown, Texas leading the way at 84% complete, well ahead of Kansas that is now sitting at 26% sown.
Winter wheat in Kansas is estimated to be 99% in head, the weather pushed the crop into head early. At this time last year Kansas had around 96% of the crop in head. Texas has about 23% of their hard red winter wheat harvested, roughly the same as this time last year. Condition ratings for the states south of Kansas will start to mean very little from now on, as we’ll soon start to see quality and yield reports coming through.
Just 15% of the Kansas wheat crop is rated Good / Excellent, the same as last week. 55% of the Kansas wheat crop is rated Poor / Very Poor, up 1pt week on week. Last week the US national winter wheat rating was just 22/4= 26% G/E, that remains steady at 21/5=26% G/E this week.

The US market appears to have the condition of their wheat factored into prices. The condition of their crop isn’t new news and from an international perspective the poor US crop is being countered by what is quickly developing to be a very good Russian crop. The Russian winter wheat region as had a dream run, and now their spring wheat region is drying out enough to get sowing completed. A 90MT+ Russian crop will act as an anchor on world wheat values again in 2026-27. We may see some localised spikes in basis for locations like parts of the USA and Australia where condition have not been perfect, but generally speaking the values we are presently seeing for new crop may be pretty close to where international values settle out.