The Agriculture Department’s Aug. 13 Crop Progress report revealed that 70 percent of the U.S. corn crop is in good-to-excellent condition, down 1 percentage point from last week, but 8 percentage points higher than the prior year’s 62 percent good-to-excellent. USDA estimates that 10 percent of the corn crop is in poor-to-very-poor condition, unchanged from last week and in line with prior-year levels.

Based on USDA’s June Acreage report, AFBF’s June 29 Market Intel update (Soybeans Finally Crowned King) and the current state-level crop conditions, an estimated 8.9 million acres of corn are in poor-to-very-poor condition. While the Southwest has experienced very dry growing conditions, most of the acres in poor-to-very-poor condition are in the Upper Midwest, western Corn Belt and along the Mississippi River. Missouri and Kansas have the most corn ground in poor-to-very-poor condition at 1.5 million and 1.2 million acres, respectively.

As of the week ending Aug. 12, 66 percent of the U.S. soybean crop was in good-to-excellent condition. The current conditions are down 1 percentage point from last week and up 7 percentage points from last year’s 59 percent. Soybean acres in poor-to-very-poor condition remained at 10 percent this week, showing no change from last week. Currently, nearly 9 million soybean acres are in poor-to-very-poor condition.