The first states to plant corn, in the U.S. South, continue to fall way behind their average planting paces due to wet weather. With April right around the corner, could the Midwest planting pace follow the same pattern in 2016?
In its weekly Crop Progress Report, the USDA pegged the Arkansas corn crop as 8% planted, well below its five-year average of 20%. For Mississippi, farmers have 5% of the corn seeded vs. a 29% five-year average. In Louisiana, only 36% of the corn has been planted, compared with a 61% five-year average. In North Carolina, only 1% of the corn is in the ground.
And to make matters worse, weather forecasters are predicting heavy rainfall for the South and Southeast states for the next 7 to 10 days. As much as 3 to 4 inches is expected in some areas, which will make any corn planting progress difficult.
Those rains are also troubling for farmers who have managed to get part of their crop planted.
Michael Thompson, a Thornton, Mississippi, farmer is thankful to be ahead of his planting pace vs. a year ago. “I’ve been fortunate this year, with 350 acres already planted and just 150 acres left,” Thompson says. “But with nearly four inches of rain in the forecast for the next 3 to 5 days, the challenge for me is to avoid having to replant the finished acres and getting stopped out of the bottom ground that needs to be planted.”
The Delta farmer says there are a lot of farmers that planted early and due to heavy rains face replanting most of those acres. “There is a lot of replanting going on around here,” Thompson says. “And I have emerged corn that I’m worried about, if we get the heavy rains that forecasters are calling for.”
Beginning next Monday, the USDA will release its first national look at corn planting progress for 2016.
Al Kluis, Kluis Commodities, says the early planting progress can be a key indicator to the season’s pace. “If we fall behind in our corn planting pace in the first two weeks, then it is difficult to ever catch up. If we get ahead, then we usually stay ahead. This year, with the current wet conditions in the southern Corn Belt and Delta, it does not look like an early spring,” Kluis noted in a weekly note to Successful Marketing newsletter subscribers.
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