Last week, USDA rated more than 80% of the corn crop in three of the top 18 corn growing states as good to excellent. Those states include Pennsylvania, Iowa, and North Carolina, which has 82% rated good to excellent. Zach Webb is a Bayer technical agronomist, and says in his region of North Carolina, growers are set up to have an outstanding crop.

“We had timely rainfall when we needed it. We did have a hot spell in there where the temperatures got pretty high and that can affect pollination to some degree. But I think people forget that if you’ve got good moisture, while the heat can be a negative, it’s not as bad as it was like last year. We were so dry, and we got heat that killed our pollination. This year we had heat, but we had good moisture.”

On the other hand, Webb says soybeans are all over the board.

“Early planted beans are growing off and look really well. We’ve had some tough conditions during planting time for soybeans. A lot of places had too much water, and then we’ve got dry in some places, especially now we’re getting a little dry in places. Double crop beans. Double crop beans look pretty rough. So the soybeans, they’re truly a mixed bag, because you may be one guy who planted in early May and has a beautiful crop. Being the guy who planted a week later had a hard time getting a stand. It was beat down. Just very, very variable right now.”

The cotton crop in the Carolinas has been tough from the start.

“The guys who planted in late April have got a phenomenal crop right now. It looks beautiful. But May, as you may remember, was very wet, and wet and cotton planting does not go together. So we got off to a rough start with cotton. But we’ve had a lot of heat, which cotton loves. We’ve had ample moisture, and I’m telling folks now, cotton is starting to look like cotton again.”

Webb is telling his cotton growers to never give up on a cotton crop.