WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. (WLFI) - Crops are improving throughout the Midwest after a difficult, late and wet planting season.
That's according to a new report from Purdue University.
Purdue University's commercial agriculture director James Mintert says the Corn Belt is finally seeing better crop conditions and that farmers can now breathe a sigh of relief.
The USDA extended the deadline for prevented plantings- which means the failure to plant insured crops. Most farmers filling a claim were already starting to see an improvement in their fields.
“We had farmers that we're unable to plant all of the acreages that we intended to plant this year and wound up taking a preventative paying plan from federal crop insurance,”
Twenty-five percent of all corn growers filled for a prevented planting claim.
Mintert says the economy barometer jumped from 126 in June to 153 in July.
"It improved rather substantially, but in May it was at the bottom and at that point farmers were looking at dismal prospects to improve their crops," stated Mintert. "Their inability to plant with corn and soybeans was weighing pretty heavily on them (the farmers),"
As a result of late planting, the USDA called for all major corn and soybean states to be re-surveyed
This survey helped better estimate how well corn and soybean acreage is doing and include acreages not found in their June report.
The results of that survey will not be available until later this month.
