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Corn planting progress topped average last week

Fair weather in key Midwest growing areas allowed corn planting progress to jump by 20% last week.

USDA meteorologist Brad Rippey says 27% of the nation’s corn was planted as of Sunday.

“And for the first time in a long time we are actually ahead of the five-year average of 20% and of course way ahead of last year’s 12% planted.”

He says three states drove that number: Minnesota, Illinois and Iowa.  

“We actually saw Minnesota leading the nation with 39% of its intended corn acreage planted in just one week and that is a huge bump from 1% a week ago.”

But he says there were some areas where progress was not so impressive.

“Missouri, which got back into the heavy rain last week, is 25% planted overall, but the five-year average in Missouri is 46%.”

Soybean planting progress also made good headway with 8% of planting complete, four percentage points ahead of average.