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USDA: more than 80% of Minnesota corn and soybeans rated good to excellent

Crop conditions continue to improve in Minnesota.

USDA’s latest weekly crop update pegs 84 percent of corn and 81 percent of soybeans in good to excellent condition.

University of Minnesota Extension crops educator Dave Nicolai says he’s impressed with the evenness of the crop.

“In other words, sometimes we’ve had situations where we’ve had drowned out spots in fields and we’re up and down in terms of height of the corn and the crop and so forth. But the crop does appear to be very even across the landscape, which is a good thing.”

He tells Brownfield the uniformity should bode well for yield.

“So as we go on (with) the rest of the growing season things look good. Let’s see how the rest of July plays out, but so far so good.”

Corn development is running ahead of normal with nearly 30 percent of the crop silking.  Soybeans are also maturing faster than usual with 23 percent setting pods.