USDA Planting Progress/Crop Condition Reports

There was a raft of data issued by the USDA Monday night concerning crop conditions and planting progress. Here's a quick summary of what they had to say:

Winter wheat: good/excellent unchanged from last week at 45%, poor/very poor up one point to 28%.

Spring wheat: 89% planted versus 98% normally and 79% a week ago. North Dakota 82% done compared to 97% normally.

Corn: 93% planted versus 97% normally and 82% a week ago, 73% emerged against 86% normally. Good/excellent rated 70% for the first assessment of the season, compared to 63% a year ago.

Soybeans: 66% planted versus 79% normally and 48% a week ago, 36% emerged against 17% last week and 51% normally.

The corn numbers mean that there are still almost 6 million acres of corn unplanted as of Sunday, 2.2 million of those are in Illinois.

In North Dakota 18% of spring wheat remains unseeded as of Sunday. With June plantings only qualifying for a reduced payout on crop insurance, surely many of these intended acres will now get switched into beans.

The numbers would appear to indicate that anywhere from 1-3 million acres more beans will get planted than the USDA are currently saying, as a result of lower corn and wheat acres.