US farmers planted 10% of the soybean crop in the week ended April 28, bringing total planting completion to 18%. This is ahead of the 5 year average of 12.4%, and well ahead of 2018-2020 planting pace of 5%, 3%, and 8% respectively. For those calling for a ‘late planting’, as discussed in the corn progress article, we simply are not behind. If you think the aforementioned years are dragging down the average planting pace, the 10 year average is 9%, 20 year is 7.4%, and since 1980 its under 4%. Only in the years 2021 and 2023 did we have a higher percent of the crop in the ground at this point.
As shown below, Iowa and Missouri are doing a lot of the heavy lifting in advancing plantings ahead of pace, at 13 and 15 percentage points ahead of their 5 year average. This is good as significant rains are forecasted to cover all of Iowa and northern Missouri over the next ten day.
The bottom line is that while we are early in the year, this crop is off to a good start.
