Weather Benefitting Corn Maturation

Corn maturation has been progressing quickly recently according to USDA Meteorologist Brad Rippey.

“We’re now at 68 percent and that, despite the progress in the past several weeks, is 10 percentage points behind the five-year average of 78 percent and even more behind last year’s 84 percent on October 1^st.”

The weather has helped speed up corn maturity but many growers were already dealing with slow developments.

In Washington, field corn is 42 percent mature, up nine percent over last week.

In terms of corn conditions, Rippey said there’s surprising good news.

“Not sure the reason, but corn condition taken a little jump upward for the week ending October 1^st, now 63 percent good to excellent, up two points. The very poor to poor ratings at 12 percent, down a point.”

In Oregon, corn is listed as 77 percent good to excellent and just seven percent poor while Washington is showing 86 percent very good to excellent with nothing below fair.