Planting Makes Progress

While most of the country was on holiday for the Memorial Day weekend, the nation’s farmers were hard at work, planting while the sun was shining and the ground was reasonably dry.

Illinois and Indiana played catch-up last week and made significant progress, although they are still running behind normal for this time of year. According to USDA, another 42 percent of the crop was planted in Illinois, to bring the total up to 62 percent, while Indiana is now at 55 percent. North Dakota also made some serious progress last week, with over 60 percent now planted. All three states are still about 30 percent behind, but the nation as a whole is only down about ten percent from the five year average. Iowa, Minnesota and Nebraska are running right on schedule with planting almost complete.

If the weather cooperates this week, we could very well see farmers pretty well caught up by this time next week.