This shows planting progress over the last 17 years, the black line is the long-term average.

Keep in mind the USDA planting progress is only the 5-year average, so much shorter term.

Long term average we should be about 10% planted, last year we were about 8% planted and this year only at 4% planted.

So, we are certainly getting off to a slow start and based off of current conditions we are not likely to catch up in the next few weeks.

 Last year we planted 29% of the crop from late April into the early portion of May and then another 21% of the crop by May 10^th. So, half the US crop last year was planted in 2 weeks.

Last year’s shown in tan shows that we didn’t plant a lot of corn in the beginning of April.

50% of the US corn crop was planted in two weeks from about April 26^th to May 10^th. That is not likely to happen this year.

In general, if you get good planting conditions over a wide area of the US, we can plant 20% or more of the US crop on a good week. But we do not see a window allowing 20% to get planted next week or the following week.

This chart shows what is planted on a week-to-week basis.

Our 13-year average shows that our peak week are the first and second week of May when 18-19% of the crop is planted. So typically, we plant an average of 37% of the crop in the first two weeks of May.

Any time we plant 20% in one week that is a pretty good week, as you can see in 2020, we had 20% planted the last week of April and 24% planted the first week of May. So, we had a good start to the planting season.

Last year we got off to a relatively slow start, we didn’t plant much in April just a couple of percent by the last week but then we planted 29% the first week of May and 21% the second week of May.

Last year we planted 50% of the US corn crop in the first 2 weeks of May.

This year as for the second week of April the US is 2% planted, therefore we need to see a significant change in the weather pattern to accelerate planting. Unfortunately, that pattern doesn’t look to change at least not in the next week.

The US corn planting progress this year is shown in red, and we are at 2% complete, that’s the same as last week at 2%.

Last weeks 2% was likely something like 1.6-1.7 averaged up to 2 and this week its likely something like 2.3-2.4 which averaged down to 2.

The black line shows the average over the past 17-18 years and it’s worth noting that we typically hit the 50% planted mark around the 5-6 of May.

Last year in yellow, we got off to somewhat of a slow start, but big weeks with the first and second week of May allowed the US farmer to plant 50% of their crop in 2 weeks.

US planting is beginning, and USDA did report planting progress coming in at 2% complete. That was the same as a year ago and that’s average for this time of year.

We should see the US planting increasing gradually through mid-April and then start accelerating in Late April into May.  

We’ll be watching carefully to see conditions as we plant, right now its too dry in the plains and too wet in the east.

The plains will still get to plant their crops, but it may be under less-than-ideal conditions and planting could be slowed in the Delta into the Ohio Valley and eastern belt.

This certainly bears watching as there is no room for error in the US crop this year.

You can se by the 1^st of April we are just getting started, normally just 3-5% or 5-6% planted by April.

Planting is relatively slow into the third week and then we really start to see the planting pick up as we move in to the last 10 days of April and first 10 days of May. That is when we plant about half the US corn crop.

 USDA typically starts reporting plant progress for corn once it gets to 3-5% complete, we will see if they report today on planting progress or wait until next week.