Drought conditions have impacted the progress of planting across the southeast. Brad Rippey USDA Meteorologist provided an update on the progress of corn planting across the country.
“With that variable weather in the Midwest, rain followed by cool weather, we did see some progress slowing down. For example, Illinois only planting 9% of the corn during the week, so that overall progress number for Illinois is at 38%, which just happens to match the national number. That is two points ahead of the five-year average in Illinois of 36%. Those numbers were skewed a lot more in the early planting direction a couple of weeks ago, so we have kind of crawled down or slowed down to that near normal pace,” said Rippey.
“Even with the wet weather and some of the cool conditions, we did see planting progress advancing during the week as much as 20% in Iowa, overall progress there now reaching 42%, but that has slipped behind the five-year average of 44%. Meanwhile, in the far north, the combination of chilly conditions and wet weather, we are seeing some delays in planting there. Michigan has been kind of the ground zero for some of the wet conditions during the month of April, only 5% of the corn planted there, five-year average is 14%,” said Rippey.
Audio Reporting by Dale Sandlin for Southeast AgNet.