USDA Crop Progress · every Monday · ranked against 2000–present

How bad is it, really?

Every drought summer the coffee shop decides the crop is “the worst ever.” Sometimes it is. Usually it isn’t. Below: each state’s Good+Excellent share this week, ranked against the same week of every year since 2000 — so “how bad” stops being a feeling and becomes a rank. Not vibes. Arithmetic.

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Every state’s crop, judged against its own history — tap a state
worst on record below normal normal among the best not surveyed
The full table — every state, worst firstloading…

Weekly state crop-condition Good+Excellent shares for corn and soybeans, ranked against the same week of every year 2000–present, from USDA NASS Crop Progress. Rank 1 = worst on record for this week. Refreshed every Monday night in season.

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Rank counts up from the worst: rank 1 of N = the lowest G+E this week has ever seen in that state’s record. The denominator is per state — most go back to 2000, but USDA only began reporting some states in 2014, so their comparison starts there. The average column is each state’s own, over the years it actually has. The bar shows how far this week sits from that state’s own average for the same week, in G+E percentage points — red below, green above, every row on the same scale. States with under 10 comparable years are left out rather than thinly ranked.

What this is. USDA’s weekly condition ratings are trained field observation, not yield measurement — useful because the method hasn’t changed in decades, which is exactly what makes the ranking honest. This page never converts conditions to bushels; models that do are a different page for a different day.
Questions people actually ask
Is this the worst crop we’ve ever had?

Check your state’s rank above. If it says 3 of 27, it’s genuinely historic. If it says 14 of 27, it’s a middling year that feels worse because it’s yours. Both answers are on the page, and neither is an opinion.

Why does my county look worse than my state’s number?

State ratings average enormous areas; your county — and your farm — can sit far from that average. The rank tells you how the state-level picture compares historically, not what your back forty looks like.

Do conditions predict yield?

Loosely and late — correlation strengthens as the season ages. Early-summer G+E is a weak predictor; by dent stage it means much more. That relationship (with its honest R²) is on the roadmap as its own page.

Where do the numbers come from?

USDA NASS Crop Progress, published Monday afternoons in season, back to 2000 for this comparison. Fetched, ranked, and refreshed automatically every Monday night; source linked below.

Source

USDA NASS Quick Stats, weekly crop condition (PCT GOOD + PCT EXCELLENT), state level, 2000–present. Rankings computed by scripts/fetch_conditions.py in the AGSIST repository (same-week matching ±1 week; states with <10 comparable years omitted). Related: basis vs normal · drought monitor · yield estimator.