This spring's heavy rains and cold temperatures in the Mid-South and the South Midwest have curtailed U.S. plantings. Meanwhile, limited moisture from the Texas panhandle to western Nebraska has kept winter wheat's crop ratings under wraps.

For winter wheat, rainfall last week boosted hard red's prospects modestly. Meanwhile, soft red's ratings continued at a strong level in the major Midwest producing states, resulting in a 2% increase in U.S. good/excellent ratings to 47% on this week's U.S. Department of Agriculture's crop conditions update. However, last fall's western plains' dryness  (which got the crop off to a poor start) is keeping ratings for this year's crop below 2007, and the five-year average for the top two categories in the low 50s. In the plains, Nebraska (+7%) and Oklahoma (+5%) good/excellent (g/e) conditions improved the most, while Texas (-3%) slipped because of minimal moisture in panhandle fields. In soft red areas, Illinois and Indiana continued to have strong g/e ratings at 66% and 62% respectively, but unneeded rains and cool temperatures in Missouri (-2%) and Arkansas (-7%) kept development slow. Overall, this year's winter wheat heading is 2% behind its five-year average of 4% for this date. This week's crop update also showed spring wheat seedings remained behind normal, because of cool temperatures in the northern plains. Plantings are just 8%, up 3% from last week and 4% behind the five-year pace of 12% for April 13. 

This year's U.S. corn plantings are also off to a slow start because of cold, wet conditions. This week's first national update shows only 2% seeded vs. 4% last year and 7% normally planted on average the last five years. This year's excessive rains from Memphis to St. Louis has the Mid-South 10-14 days behind with Arkansas (27% vs. 79% five-year average), Tennessee (5% vs. 42%), Missouri (2% vs. 32%) and Kentucky (1% vs. 26%); no plantings were reported in any of the major Midwest states.

Clear skies and warmer temperatures in the central U.S. will promote some field drying, but a late-week storm system likely will keep corn planting curtailed, with next week's progress probably 50% less than the 5-year average of 18%-20%. Because of the need to boost 2008 corn plantings by 2 million-3 million acres (to have minimally adequate 2009 supplies), the weather will become increasingly important to corn and soybean prices over the next 2-3 weeks-with its direction determining these two crops' values. Wheat probably will remain on the defensive ahead of harvest.  

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