About 4 percent of the national spring wheat crop is up, the USDA says
By Diego Flammini
Staff Writer
Farms.com
America’s 2019 spring wheat crop is starting to emerge.
About 4 percent of the total U.S. spring wheat acres are up, the USDA’s Weekly Weather and Crop Bulletin said on May 7. That number is on par with last year.
Wheat in Washington is the furthest along at 34 percent emerged, which is down from 46 percent last year.
Spring wheat in Idaho is 21 percent emerged, down from 33 percent last year, the USDA said.
Rain is to blame for the lack of progress.
Fields have received too much moisture which is delaying planting and therefore emergence, said Bill Flory, chairman of Idaho Wheat.
“We are 28 to 35 days late getting started at all,” he told Farms.com. “It’s been a challenging spring with lots of rain. The wheat that has emerged around the state looks good and is uniform. Wheat that was planted early is almost big enough to be sprayed, but for those of us that are late we’re going to need some timely rains in late May and early June.”
The U.S. corn crop also continues to emerge.
About 6 percent of total corn acres are up, the USDA says. That figure is down one point from last year.
Corn in Texas is 61 percent emerged, which is the furthest progress among the 18 documented states. Corn in North Carolina is 50 percent emerged followed by Tennessee corn which is 36 percent up.
The progress in all three states is ahead of last year’s numbers.
U.S. soybean planting is moving along, too.
About 6 percent of the American soybean crop is planted, the USDA reported. That figure represents an 8 percent decline from last year’s progress.
Louisiana has 46 percent of its beans planted, followed by Mississippi with 27 percent planted. Farmers in both states are behind last year’s seeding progress.