Planting Delays Continue

Wet weather continues to cause planting delays in the Eastern corn belt and concerns about the potential yield of this season’s crop are being raised.

“What we’re seeing this year, particularly in Illinois and Indiana, is a very, very sharp reduction in their planting progress due to the excessively wet conditions,” said USDA World Agricultural Outlook board chairman Gerry Bangee. “Way, way behind what they should be.” In fact, the planting progress in both states at around 10 percent is the second lowest on record, the worst being during the flooding of 1993.

Progress was also behind schedule last year at this time and the same concerns were being raised, but farmers did manage to catch up again when the fields dried out and Bangee says that could definitely be the case again this year. “History has shown us that these states can do a lot of planting in one week and we are thinking there’s a good possibility that these numbers could improve considerably,” he said.

That could start next week, when a pattern of drier weather is forecast to begin.