Winter wheat conditions improved materially in the week to 8 November, with the good or excellent rating rising five points to 49% and the southern Plains supplying most of the gain. Corn and sorghum moved the other way. Both advanced on the week and both fell further behind normal, because their five-year averages advanced faster: corn's deficit widened from three points to five and sorghum's from fourteen to fifteen. Sorghum carries the larger shortfall of the two, concentrated almost entirely outside Texas.
TL;DR
Winter wheat conditions: 49% good or excellent against 44% a week earlier, with poor and very poor together falling from 18% to 16%.
The improvement runs across the distribution: good and excellent gained five points in aggregate while fair fell three and poor or very poor fell two.
The southern Plains drove it: Oklahoma improved eleven points to 36% good or excellent and Texas nine points to 42%, against Kansas at 51%.
Emergence crossed above normal: 76% emerged against a five-year average of 74%, having been behind a week earlier. Planting at 89% remains one point short of the 90% average.
Corn's deficit widened: 81% harvested, up seven points, but the gap to the five-year average widened from three points to five.
Iowa is among the most delayed major corn states: 72% harvested against an 89% average, a seventeen-point deficit, with only 1.7 days suitable for fieldwork and 27% of topsoil in surplus condition.
Sorghum carries the largest deficit, and it also widened: 70% harvested against an 85% average, a fifteen-point gap against fourteen a week earlier, with Texas at 99% while Nebraska sits 25 points behind its average and Kansas 23 points behind.
Soybeans and cotton are ahead: soybeans at 92%, one point ahead of normal, and cotton harvesting at 71% against a 63% average.
US Crop Dashboard
Indicator
1 Nov
8 Nov
5-year avg.
Gap
Corn harvested
74%
81%
86%
−5 pp
Sorghum harvested
64%
70%
85%
−15 pp
Soybeans harvested
88%
92%
91%
+1 pp
Winter wheat planted
83%
89%
90%
−1 pp
Winter wheat emerged
65%
76%
74%
+2 pp
Winter wheat good/excellent
44%
49%
not published
—
Cotton bolls opening
92%
94%
98%
−4 pp
Cotton harvested
63%
71%
63%
+8 pp
Sugarbeets harvested
86%
90%
94%
−4 pp
Sunflowers harvested
61%
74%
71%
+3 pp
Peanuts harvested
66%
77%
81%
−4 pp
USDA NASS Crop Progress, released 9 November 2026 for the week ended 8 November 2026. USDA publishes these as national indicators estimated from each crop's principal producing states, and the number of states differs by crop. Gaps are percentage points against the five-year average for the same week. USDA does not publish a five-year average for condition ratings.
Two crops are further behind their seasonal benchmarks than the rest, and both moved the same way. Sorghum's fifteen-point deficit is the largest on the board, widened from fourteen points a week earlier against the 78% average then applying. Corn's five-point deficit is smaller but widened further, from three points. Both crops harvested through the week and both lost ground against the calendar while doing so.
Winter Wheat: Conditions Improve as the Southern Plains Recover
The good or excellent rating rose from 44% to 49%. The full five-category distribution sets that in context.
Condition
1 Nov
8 Nov
Change
Excellent
6%
8%
+2 pp
Good
38%
41%
+3 pp
Fair
38%
35%
−3 pp
Poor
13%
12%
−1 pp
Very poor
5%
4%
−1 pp
USDA NASS Crop Progress, week ended 8 November 2026. Categories sum to 100% in both weeks.
The distribution improved across its full range. The good and excellent categories gained five percentage points in aggregate, while fair declined three points and poor or very poor declined two. That is consistent with a broad improvement in reported crop condition, although the published totals are category shares rather than observations of individual fields, so they do not identify how any particular acreage changed category or whether the improvement will persist.
State
G/E, 1 Nov
G/E, 8 Nov
Change
Emerged
Emergence avg.
Kansas
47%
51%
+4 pp
78%
78%
Oklahoma
25%
36%
+11 pp
61%
69%
Texas
33%
42%
+9 pp
71%
63%
USDA NASS Crop Progress, week ended 8 November 2026. G/E is the good or excellent share.
Oklahoma supplied the largest single improvement, rising eleven points from a very low base of 25%, with emergence advancing from 41% to 61%. Even after that gain the state remains the weakest of the three on both measures, with emergence eight points below its own average and barely a third of the crop rated good or excellent. Texas improved nine points and its emergence at 71% runs eight points ahead of normal. Kansas, the largest producing state, improved more modestly from an already higher base and its emergence exactly matches its five-year average.
Nationally the emergence figure is the one that changed category. At 76% against a 74% average, emergence has crossed from behind normal to ahead of it, while planting at 89% against 90% remains marginally short. The national figures suggest that emergence is progressing at least as quickly as the seasonal benchmark, although they do not establish the quality or uniformity of the resulting stands.
For historical context, DTN reports a five-year average winter wheat condition of 37% good or excellent. That is a third-party calculation rather than a USDA publication, since USDA does not publish a five-year average for condition ratings, and it carries two qualifications: the displayed category averages behind it, 32% good and 6% excellent, sum to 38% rather than 37%, which suggests separately rounded series; and the current release omits the corresponding 2025 observation, so the construction across that gap is not established here. It is offered as attributed context rather than as a benchmark, and no conclusion here rests on it.
One qualification governs all of this. A November condition rating for winter wheat is a snapshot taken as the crop approaches dormancy, and it is a weak predictor of the following summer's harvest. The crop will overwinter before the conditions that determine yield arrive, and ratings commonly move substantially between autumn and spring in both directions. The improvement is real as a description of establishment. It is not a yield forecast, and it should not be read as one in either direction.
Corn: The Harvest Deficit Widens Again
Corn harvesting reached 81%, an advance of seven points on the week. The five-year average for the same week stands at 86%, so the deficit widened from three points to five. Progress and relative progress moved in opposite directions, which is the distinction that matters: the crop is coming in, but more slowly than the calendar normally requires at this stage.
State
Harvested, 8 Nov
5-year avg.
Gap
Iowa
72%
89%
−17 pp
South Dakota
68%
85%
−17 pp
Nebraska
74%
84%
−10 pp
Ohio
69%
75%
−6 pp
Michigan
61%
66%
−5 pp
USDA NASS Crop Progress, week ended 8 November 2026.
The deficit is concentrated rather than general. Iowa and South Dakota are both seventeen points behind their averages, and Iowa advanced only six points on the week, from 66% to 72%. Iowa recorded just 1.7 days suitable for fieldwork, down from 5.1 the previous week. That sharp reduction in field access helps explain why harvesting advanced only six percentage points, leaving the state seventeen points behind its five-year average. The figures do not quantify how much of the deficit the reduced access caused, and the weekly comparison is against the previous week rather than against a historical norm for field days.
The moisture figures reinforce the fieldwork evidence. Iowa reported 27% of topsoil in surplus condition and 71% adequate, leaving just 2% short. The state's weekly weather summary described unusually wet conditions during the first week of November, with some locations receiving more than a month's normal rainfall. That provides a firmer explanation for the harvest slowdown than the fieldwork figure alone, although it does not establish any loss of production.
That distinction carries a practical consequence. Grain still standing in the field in mid-November is exposed to weather and to quality deterioration in a way that grain in store is not, and the exposure is a function of time rather than of the crop's condition. What the data establish is a delay and a plausible proximate reason for it. They do not establish a yield loss, a quality loss, or any change to the size of the crop.
Sorghum: The Largest Deficit, Almost Entirely Outside Texas
Sorghum harvesting reached 70% against a five-year average of 85%, a fifteen-point deficit and the widest on the dashboard. The crop advanced six points on the week, so the shortfall is not the result of work stopping. A week earlier the figure was 64% against a 78% average, so the deficit widened by a point even as the harvest progressed.
State
Harvested, 8 Nov
5-year avg.
Gap
Texas
99%
99%
0 pp
Kansas
57%
80%
−23 pp
Nebraska
54%
79%
−25 pp
USDA NASS Crop Progress, week ended 8 November 2026. State five-year averages as reported by Feed & Grain and from USDA-derived state data for Texas.
The geographic split is the finding, and the state comparisons against normal sharpen it considerably. Texas is not merely finished, it is exactly on its seasonal schedule at 99% against a 99% average. Nebraska is 25 points behind its own average and Kansas 23 points behind, each a far wider gap than the fifteen-point national figure. Both are central Plains states, and the national deficit is substantially a central Plains phenomenon rather than a general one. Kansas is the largest sorghum producing state and will therefore weigh heavily in the aggregate, though quantifying its contribution would require acreage weights that are not applied here.
Sorghum's national figure is compiled from six states rather than the eighteen behind corn and soybeans, so the aggregate is more sensitive to conditions in any one of them. The same weather that slowed corn work across the central Plains is the obvious common factor, though the release does not attribute the sorghum deficit to any cause and neither do we.
Soybeans: Harvest Nearing Completion
Soybean harvesting reached 92%, four points higher on the week and one point ahead of the 91% five-year average. The crop is nearing completion nationally, though 8% remains unharvested and that residue is not evenly distributed across producing states.
The state detail runs against the corn pattern rather than with it. Iowa is slightly behind at 93% against a 95% average, a two-point deficit set beside its seventeen-point corn deficit, while Illinois has reached 96% against 92% normally. Soybeans are harvested earlier than corn and the crop was largely clear of the fields before the weather that slowed Iowa's corn work, which is why the same state can sit close to normal in one crop and far behind in another.
Cotton: Harvesting Ahead, Development Behind
Cotton harvesting advanced eight points to 71% against a five-year average of 63%, the largest positive gap of any indicator on the dashboard. Texas, which dominates the national figure, reached 65% against 55% normally.
Boll opening at 94% against a 98% average is the one cotton measure behind normal. The two should be read separately rather than as a single trajectory, because they describe different stages measured against different seasonal benchmarks: opening describes the crop's development and harvesting its removal. A crop can be slightly late to open and still be gathered quickly. What the figures establish is that both are true at once; they do not establish why, and nothing here identifies the field or weather conditions responsible.
Other Crops
Three further crops appear in the release and none changes the overall picture, though each adds to it.
Sugarbeets reached 90% harvested against a 94% average, a four-point deficit, having advanced four points on the week. Sunflowers advanced thirteen points to 74% against a 71% average, which puts them three points ahead of normal and makes them the week's largest single advance. Peanuts advanced eleven points to 77% against an 81% average, leaving a four-point deficit.
Of the eleven indicators on the dashboard, six are behind their five-year averages and four are ahead. Winter wheat condition has no USDA-published five-year benchmark. These comparisons describe the current week's position, not whether each crop improved or deteriorated relative to normal over the week, which would require the previous week's average for every line.
The Physical Picture
The week divides the crops into two groups that do not correspond to anything about the crops themselves. Soybeans, cotton and sunflowers are at or ahead of normal. Corn, sorghum, sugarbeets and peanuts are behind, and the two largest shortfalls, corn and sorghum, are concentrated in the same central Plains and upper Midwest geography.
The aggregate national figures understate how uneven this is. A five-point corn deficit contains two states seventeen points behind and others near their averages. A fifteen-point sorghum deficit contains one state at 99% and two near 55%. A five-point winter wheat improvement contains an eleven-point move in Oklahoma against four in Kansas. Where a national number is composed of regional extremes, the regional detail is the more informative part of it, because the extremes are where any subsequent revision or deterioration will originate.
None of this measures production. Crop Progress reports the state of fieldwork and the condition of standing crops as assessed by surveyors. It does not estimate yields, acreage or output, and the figures here cannot be converted into a supply estimate.
Outlook
The immediate event is the November World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates report, released on 10 November at noon Eastern time, five o'clock in the United Kingdom. That report carries balance-sheet estimates of production, supply and demand. It does not replace this one, and the two are not alternative views of the same variable: Crop Progress continues to report planting, harvesting and condition after the WASDE is published. What a new WASDE can change is which dataset the market is trading on, and in a week when corn's harvest deficit has widened the balance-sheet estimates will be read against that.
Beyond that, two things resolve over the coming weeks. The corn and sorghum deficits either narrow as field conditions permit or persist into a period when the weather window closes, and the Iowa fieldwork figure is the most direct available indicator of which. For winter wheat, the practical question is whether emergence completes before dormancy across the southern Plains, with Oklahoma at 61% against a 69% average the clearest remaining shortfall.
Weekly national Crop Progress reporting concludes for the season at the end of November, so the number of further observations in this series before the winter gap is small.
Key Risks
Condition ratings are not yield forecasts. The 49% good or excellent rating describes winter wheat as assessed in November, before dormancy and before the conditions that determine yield. Autumn ratings move substantially in both directions over winter and their relationship to the following summer's harvest is weak.
Survey data, not measurement. Crop Progress figures are compiled from surveyor assessments rather than physical measurement, and both condition ratings and progress percentages carry the subjectivity of that method.
Coverage differs by crop.USDA publishes these as national indicators estimated from the principal producing states for each crop, and the number of states differs, from six for sorghum to eighteen for corn and soybeans. An indicator built on fewer states is more sensitive to conditions in any one of them.
National figures conceal regional extremes. A fifteen-point sorghum deficit contains one state at 99% and two near 55%. Aggregates calculated across states in very different positions describe none of them.
Progress is not production. Nothing here estimates yield, acreage or output. A harvest delay is a statement about timing and exposure, not about the quantity of the crop.
Five-year averages move weekly. The gap to normal changes when the average advances, not only when progress does. Corn's deficit widened while harvesting advanced seven points, which is a function of both series moving.
Field-day comparisons are week on week. Iowa's 1.7 days suitable is measured against the previous week's 5.1, not against a historical average for the date, and the figures do not quantify how much of the harvest deficit reduced access caused.
WASDE may change the market interpretation. The balance-sheet revisions published on 10 November cover different variables from these figures. They do not supersede Crop Progress, which continues through the season, but they may reset what the market is pricing.
Intelligence Monitoring Points
The November WASDE, 10 November at noon Eastern. Corn, sorghum and wheat balance sheets, and whether the supply estimates move in the direction the physical progress data would suggest.
Iowa fieldwork days. Whether the 1.7 days suitable recovers toward the 5.1 recorded a week earlier, which governs whether the seventeen-point corn deficit narrows or hardens.
Central Plains sorghum. Nebraska at 54% against a 79% average and Kansas at 57% against 80%, deficits of 25 and 23 points against a national shortfall of fifteen. These are the figures worth watching rather than the national line.
Oklahoma emergence. At 61% against a 69% average, whether the remaining shortfall closes before dormancy.
National winter wheat condition. Whether the five-point improvement extends or reverses in the remaining reports of the season.
The end of weekly reporting. National Crop Progress concludes for the season at the end of November, after which state-level reporting and the January reports become the available evidence.
FAQ
How much US winter wheat was rated good or excellent on 8 November 2026?
49%, up from 44% a week earlier. The improvement runs across the distribution: good and excellent gained five points in aggregate, while fair fell three points and poor or very poor together fell from 18% to 16%.
Which states drove the winter wheat improvement?
The southern Plains. Oklahoma rose eleven points to 36% good or excellent and Texas nine points to 42%, while Kansas improved four points to 51% from a higher base.
Does a 49% condition rating mean a good wheat harvest next year?
No. A November rating describes the crop as it approaches dormancy, months before the conditions that determine yield. Autumn ratings move substantially over winter in both directions, and their relationship to the following harvest is weak.
Is the US corn harvest behind schedule?
Yes, and by more than a week ago. Harvesting reached 81% against a five-year average of 86%, widening the deficit from three points to five even though progress advanced seven points on the week.
Why did the corn deficit widen if harvesting advanced?
Because the five-year average advanced faster. The gap to normal is the difference between two moving series, so it can widen in a week when real progress is made.
Which crop is furthest behind normal?
Sorghum, at 70% harvested against an 85% five-year average, a fifteen-point deficit. Both sorghum and corn fell further behind over the week, sorghum from fourteen points to fifteen and corn from three to five, so corn's deficit is the smaller of the two but widened by more.
Why is sorghum so far behind when Texas has finished?
Because the national figure reflects the central Plains as well as Texas. Texas is 99% harvested, while Kansas is 57% against an 80% average and Nebraska 54% against 79%, deficits of 23 and 25 points. Both are far wider than the fifteen-point national shortfall, and Kansas is the largest producing state.
Does this report tell us the size of the crop?
No. Crop Progress reports fieldwork progress and crop condition as assessed by surveyors. It does not estimate yield, acreage or production, and these figures cannot be converted into a supply estimate.
Data and Source Note
All progress and condition figures are from the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service Crop Progress report released on 9 November 2026, covering the week ended 8 November 2026, with the preceding week's figures from the report of 2 November 2026 covering the week ended 1 November 2026.
USDA publishes these lines as national crop progress indicators estimated from the principal producing states for each crop, with defined state coverage that differs by crop: eighteen states for corn and soybeans, fifteen for cotton, eight for peanuts and six for sorghum. They are official national indicators rather than comprehensive measurements of every state, and an indicator built on fewer states is correspondingly more sensitive to conditions in any one of them.
Percentage-point gaps are calculated against the five-year average published for the same week, which advances weekly, so a gap can widen or narrow without any change in the rate of progress. The previous week's five-year averages for corn and sorghum, 77% and 78% respectively, are taken from our edition of 3 November 2026 and are the basis for the statement that both deficits widened. Where a previous week's average is not established, no statement is made about whether a gap widened or narrowed.
USDA does not publish a five-year average for crop condition ratings. The historical comparison of 37% good or excellent quoted in the winter wheat section is DTN's own calculation and is attributed as such; it is not a USDA benchmark, and the current release omits the corresponding 2025 observation, so the construction of that series across the gap is not established here. Condition ratings are surveyor assessments distributed across five categories which sum to 100%.
State-level sorghum harvest percentages are corroborated across DTN, the Oklahoma Farm Report summary and Feed & Grain, with the state five-year averages of 80% for Kansas and 79% for Nebraska as reported by Feed & Grain and 99% for Texas from USDA-derived state data. Days suitable for fieldwork is a USDA-reported weekly figure for the state named and is compared here with the previous week rather than with a historical average.
Iowa topsoil moisture percentages and the accompanying weather description are from the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship crop and weather report for the week ended 8 November 2026. Topsoil moisture readings for Oklahoma and Texas for that week are not established here, and no cause is attributed to the winter wheat condition improvement in those states.
This report measures fieldwork progress and crop condition. It does not estimate yield, acreage or production. The November World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates report, released at noon Eastern time on 10 November 2026, is a separate publication covering production and balance-sheet variables. It does not supersede Crop Progress and is not reflected in these figures.
