Past IEM Features tagged: usda

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Lagging Corn Emergence

10 Jun 2019 05:34 AM
The USDA is set to release updated weekly crop progress numbers today and will be very interesting to see how things have progressed over Iowa this past week. Conditions have generally improved greatly with warmer weather and mostly dry conditions. Both should help get the rest of the corn planted and that which was planted emerged. Both stats have been running below average this year as shown by the featured chart presented Iowa and Illinois' corn crop planting and emergence progress. Iowa has generally fared better than Illinois, but the cool May did not help what corn that did get planted up and out of the ground. Unfortunately, cooler and wetter weather has returned for this week.

Voting:
Good: 17
Bad: 0

Tags:   usda   corn  

Corn Condition

18 Aug 2016 05:31 AM
The featured set of charts displays yearly time series of USDA NASS reported corn crop condition reports since 1986 for six selected states in the Midwest. The values shown total the two poorest conditions (poor and very poor) contained within the report. Four years are highlighted for comparison. The black lines present the values for this year and there are very small amounts of poor corn to be found. The drought year of 2012 is also highlighted to show how bad things got in states like Illinois and Missouri. Timely and significant rains have occurred this summer over much of the corn belt, but as shown by Ohio's plotted values, some places have missed out.

Voting:
Good: 6
Bad: 0

Tags:   usda   corn  

Bad year for corn

17 Aug 2012 05:47 AM
The featured chart presents yearly time series of USDA reported weekly corn crop condition for Iowa and five nearby states. The charted line represents the total area estimated to be in either "poor" or "very poor" condition. These are the two worst categories that are designated. Each chart contains the time series for each year since 1986. Conveniently, this allows us to compare this year with the last major drought of 1988 in the Midwest. Other significant years of 2005 and 1993 are included for comparison. While 2012 has been devastating in Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana, things have not been all that bad in Minnesota. Compare that with what happened in 1993 where Minnesota got the worst of it. It is not for certain how much some recent rains in the Midwest will help the corn crop as the damage has pretty much already been done in the hardest hit areas.

Voting:
Good: 82
Bad: 25

Tags:   usda   corn   2012   1988   1993  


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Stats from USDA NASS service

Getting the corn planted

23 May 2012 05:48 AM
Getting the crops planted each spring in Iowa is not an arbitrary task. Threats of frost, rain, drought, and soil temperatures are among the issues farmers need to work through each year. The featured chart presents USDA weekly estimates of corn acres planted in Iowa since 1979. A few of the extreme years are highlighted in the upper chart. This year got off to a very early start, but wet weather arrived causing the planting rate to slow. We recently finished a bit ahead of schedule thanks to our recent stretch of dry weather. The lower chart presents the largest weekly jump each year in the percentage of acres planted. It is interesting to note that this value hasn't increased over the years. While individual farmers are easily able to plant more acres in a day, there are many fewer farmers and they need to work more days to cover the larger farm sizes that currently exist.

Voting:
Good: 41
Bad: 11

Tags:   corn   usda