04/26/06 Crop condition and progress

Farm and Ranch April 26, 2006 USDA's weekly crop weather report showed a slight decrease in the condition of the U.S. winter wheat crop this past week. Here's USDA meteorologist Brad Rippey; Rippey: "Thirty-nine percent of the crop is rated good to excellent. Thirty-four percent very poor to poor. The good to excellent number same as last week. Percentage rated very poor to poor climbing two percentage points from a week ago." And where it is bad it's very bad. Rippey: "Texas and Oklahoma lead the way with 77% and 72% of the winter wheat crop rated very poor to poor. Also seeing increasing problems particularly up into Kansas and Colorado. Thirty-one of the crop now rated very poor to poor in Kansas, 22% in Colorado." However, Rippey says there is good wheat to be found in the west, northwest, northern Plains and Ohio Valley. Rippey: "Ten of the 18 major reporting states are reporting at least two-thirds of their winter wheat crop in good to excellent condition." Planting of the U.S. spring wheat crop progressed to 20 percent complete to start this week, seven points behind the five year average for now. Although northwest states have more of their crop in the ground seeding progress was still running around 30 points behind average in Idaho and Washington. Potato planting was running ahead of average in Idaho at 15 percent complete and in Washington at 65 percent seeded but in Washington emergence was only four percent compared to the usual 20 percent at this time. One-quarter of the U.S. corn crop has been planted and that's slightly ahead of average for now. I'm Bob Hoff and that's the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.