News

Corn planting off to slow start nationwide

The USDA’s latest crop progress report confirms that U.S. corn planting is off to somewhat of a slow start.

As of April 11th, the crop is two percentplanted nationwide. That’s behind the five-year average of six percent, but is in line with last year’s pace.

DTN analyst John Sanow says the most bullish part of the report is that the big three—Illinois, Indiana and Iowa—are officially at zero percent planted.Normally, he says, Illinois would be around seven percent by this time. But Sanow says it still too early for traders to get overly concerned.

Spring wheat planting is running well behind, with only two percent planted. The five-year average is 11 percent. North Dakota andMinnesota are zero percent planted.

Winter wheat crop conditions changed only slightly from week-ago ratings. Forty-two percent of the crop is rated good to excellent, compared with 43 percent last week. Sanow says if there was any frost damage to winter wheat over thelast week, it will take a few weeks for the full extent of the damage to show up in the crop reports.