News

Drier weather helped planting progress in Iowa

A few days of drier weather last week allowed Iowa farmers to make some good planting progress.

Corn planting in the state stood at 70 percent as of Sunday, a 22 point increase from a week ago. However, that is still the smallest percent of corn planted by May 19th in Iowa since 1993, when just 53 percent of the expected crop had been planted.

Twenty percent of the corn crop had emerged, over a week behind average.

Twenty-seven percent of the expected soybean crop has been planted, nine days behind average. Three percent of soybeans had emerged.

There were scattered reports of first cutting of alfalfa hay. Hay condition rated 62 percent good to excellent.