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.
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 27 = the lowest G+E this week has ever seen since 2000. In the strip, each dot is one year’s G+E for this same week, 2000 at the left through this year’s gold dot — dotted line is the average, and the small numbers at right are that state’s best and worst for this week, so the strip reads without hovering. States with under 10 comparable years are left out rather than thinly ranked.
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.
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.