Crop Progress: how far has the crop developed?
Each row shows the reported percentage reaching a particular stage. The stages overlap: a harvested crop has also passed earlier stages. Do not add the rows together.
| Stage | Current | 5Y avg | Vs. normal |
|---|---|---|---|
| Planted | 97% | 96% | +1 pp |
| Emerged | 97% | 97% | 0 pp |
| Silking | 97% | 97% | 0 pp |
| Dough | 92% | 89% | +3 pp |
| Dented | 92% | 91% | +1 pp |
| Mature | 58% | 55% | +3 pp |
| Harvested | 13% | 11% | +2 pp |
| Stage | What it describes |
|---|---|
| Planted | Planting completed. |
| Emerged | Plants have appeared above the soil. |
| Silking | Silks are emerging from ears. |
| Dough | Kernels have reached the dough-like development stage. |
| Dented | Kernels have developed the characteristic dent. |
| Mature | The crop has reached maturity. |
| Harvested | The crop has been gathered from the field. |
USDA’s definitions describe the reporting stages in more detail.
Current, 5Y Avg and “vs. normal”
Current is the latest reported share for that stage. 5Y Avg is the report’s five-year average for the comparable week. The badge subtracts the average from the current reading and reports percentage points (pp).
13% harvested − 11% five-year average = +2 pp. It means harvesting is ahead in percentage terms. It does not establish that harvest is two days early or that prices will rise.
Current phase and the progress panel
The highlighted phase is an app selection based on the latest available progress readings. It identifies the most advanced listed stage with progress above 0% and below 98%, with a fallback when no stage meets that rule. “Harvested” as the phase therefore does not mean the entire crop has been harvested.
The lower panel compares the selected stage with its five-year average. A weekly trend is shown when enough observations are stored. A single reading supports a comparison, but not a meaningful trend line.
Crop Condition: how is the crop rated?
USDA reports five condition categories: Very Poor, Poor, Fair, Good and Excellent. The donut combines Good and Excellent. The colored breakdown shows the share in each category.
If Good is 44% and Excellent is 13%, the donut reads 57%. This is a condition rating, not the probability of a profitable trade or a yield forecast.
The condition index: a weighted score from 1 to 5
Stock Seasonality summarizes the five percentages with weights of 1 through 5. This displayed index is an app calculation from the USDA categories.
For 6%, 11%, 26%, 44% and 13%, the index is 3.47 / 5. Higher readings give more weight to the better-rated categories; the score is not a forecast of future production.
Weekly and yearly comparisons
The comparison block puts the current Good/Excellent reading beside the supplied previous-week and previous-year values. For example, 57% versus 57% last week is unchanged; 57% versus 66% last year is 9 pp lower. The index’s weekly change is in index points, not percentage points.
Weather Risk: what do the four tiles measure?
The weather tiles use NASA POWER modeled estimates at ten fixed points, one in each selected state. They summarize the latest seven complete days shared by all ten points. Their baseline is the 2001–2020 monthly climatology; it is not a weather forecast.
| Tile | Calculation and interpretation |
|---|---|
| Precipitation anomaly | At each point: (seven-day rain total ÷ expected total − 1) × 100. Positive means wetter than the baseline; negative means drier. |
| Temperature anomaly | Seven-day mean temperature minus the mean baseline, expressed in °F. A positive reading means warmer; it is a temperature difference, not the actual temperature. |
| Root-zone wetness | Percentage difference between the modeled root-zone wetness index and its baseline. It is not a field measurement of soil water content or of the top one meter. |
| Drought Area · D1+ | The equal-weight mean of ten state land-area percentages in moderate drought or worse: D1 through D4. It does not measure the share of corn acreage exposed. |
For rain, temperature and wetness, the regional number is the simple average of the ten point anomalies. Each day in a seven-day window uses the climatology for its month, including windows crossing month boundaries. The samples are not weighted by crop acreage.
How to read the small lines
The three NASA lines show daily endpoints of rolling seven-day anomalies. The drought line shows weekly reports, and its change is measured in percentage points versus the prior available report. A rising line describes a changing metric; it is not automatically an increase in trading risk.
A rainfall anomaly of +50% means the sampled total was 1.5 times its baseline. A temperature anomaly of +4°F means four degrees warmer than the baseline. These two values measure different things.
The Corn Belt map: select a state
The map covers Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Nebraska, Kansas, Minnesota, South Dakota, Wisconsin and Missouri. Select a marker to view the sample’s location, rain anomaly, temperature anomaly and wetness anomaly, plus the state’s D1+ drought area share.
Marker colors describe rainfall at the sampled location: orange below −10%, pale green within ±10%, and green above +10%. Neutral markers indicate unavailable weather samples. The boundaries provide geography; a point’s color does not establish uniform conditions across the whole state.
“Near normal” is the app’s ±10% display band. It is not an official drought classification.
Seasonality Impact: compare context with history
The chart uses the seasonal path from the current market analysis. It shows the average normalized historical calendar-year pattern for the selected history, with a base index of 100. Read January through December across the horizontal axis.
The vertical axis is a seasonal index, not a futures price in dollars. It adjusts to the data range so changes remain visible. The dotted 100 line is the reference level. An index of 105 is 5% above that normalized base; it does not promise a 5% return from today.
Current context and Current Outlook
Current phase, crop timing and crop condition summarize the USDA readings. “Weather premium: Not modeled” and “Regime: Not assessed” mean those estimates have not been calculated. The grey “Crop-Adjusted · next” legend is not a second active data series.
Use the panel to compare historical tendencies with current reported conditions. It does not establish that weather caused a price move or provide a standalone trade recommendation.
This Week’s USDA Snapshot
The lower strip brings together the selected stage’s progress, Good/Excellent condition and the condition index. The progress badge compares with the five-year average; the condition badge compares with last week. The report date and full-report link help you check the source.
Harvested 13% vs 11% five-year average; Good/Excellent 57%. Summary calculated from example readings.
The “Report at a glance” text is a rule-based summary calculated from the displayed USDA readings. It is not a quotation from USDA, an analyst forecast, or a weather-adjusted recommendation.
When does the dashboard update?
| Data | How the app checks it |
|---|---|
| USDA crop reports | A daily scheduled job checks for available reports. Crop Progress is a weekly publication during the reporting season; daily checks do not mean a new report exists every day. |
| NASA weather | The server refreshes at startup and on a weather request when its six-hour cache has expired. Upstream data can lag the current date. |
| Drought | Pulled during the weather refresh, using the latest common weekly report across all ten states. |
| Seasonal curve | Comes from the selected market analysis and history range, separately from the USDA and weather feeds. |
The displayed dates refer to the observations or report, not the time you opened the page. Reopen or refresh the page to fetch the latest crop snapshot; leaving the tab open does not continuously reload USDA data.
Missing, delayed or stale readings
A missing observation is not zero. Regional weather needs all ten samples and a complete seven-day window. Drought needs a report date shared by all ten states. If a refresh fails, the app may retain the last successful section and mark it stale. Weather older than seven days and drought older than fourteen days are also marked stale. A stale reading remains historical context; check its date before interpreting it as current.
Sources and further reading
The calculations above describe the Stock Seasonality implementation. These primary sources explain the underlying datasets.
Related: Corn seasonality research using the CORN ETF. That research page uses a different instrument from the ZC=F futures view explained here.
Put the numbers in context.
Open corn, choose Crop & Weather, and use the information buttons whenever you need an explanation.