Spring planting still running behind

Farm and Ranch May 6, 2009 Spring cereal grain planting was still running behind normal in the Pacific Northwest and the nation at the start of this week. Nationally, the USDA reported 23 percent of the U.S. spring wheat crop had been planted, about 34 percent or two weeks behind the average pace for now. Northwest states are much further along with 67 percent of Idaho spring wheat planted, 78 percent of Washington's and 85 percent of Oregon's. Planting of the U.S. corn crop is also behind, just a third planted when on average half the crop would now be in the ground. Wet, cool weather has been causing planting delays and USDA meteorologist Eric Lubehusen says the 8-14 day forecast looks more promising, but not everywhere. Lubehusen: "This covers the period May 12-18th. And we are looking at generally drier and warmer than normal weather across much of the United States. The center of the warmer than normal conditions will be across the south-central plains, eastward into the lower-middle Mississippi River Valley. But again, the National Service expects warmer than normal weather across much of the nation with near to below normal temperatures confined to the U.S.-Canadian border, particularly New England. In terms of precipitation expect drier than normal conditions to prevail virtually from coast-to-coast with the exception of portions of the Pacific Northwest where the National Weather Service is expecting above normal rainfall over the eight to 14 day period." Weekly crop progress reports showed improvements in all Pacific Northwest states in the percentage of winter wheat rated good to excellent. There was improvement nationally too, but the winter wheat is still running behind average in development. I'm Bob Hoff and that's the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.