It has not been possible to catch up with the US corn and soybean harvest. How did that happen?
Only 22% of the total corn area is now grown. Last year around this time it was 33%, the 5-year average is 37%. Two-thirds of the harvest is in good to excellent condition and 15% is excellent. Quite a bit more has grown last week. Yet yields are below September forecasts. This also applies to soybeans.
Soybean harvest delay
The harvest with this crop is also slower than normal, but it is not as bad as with corn. According to the USDA, the harvest is 36% complete. That is still less than last year, when 41% of soybeans were harvested during this period and less than the 5-year average (43%). Here too, two-thirds of the crops are in good to excellent condition. However, with more rain on the way, the chances of catching up are slim.
Winter wheat sowing is 48% complete. This means that progress is behind the pace of 2016, when 57% was already in the ground at this time, and that is also less than the 5-year average (58%).