Corn Harvest Hits 60% as Soybeans Edge Ahead of Five-Year Pace

By Olivia Hart

USDA counted 60% of the U.S. corn crop in the bin as of Sunday, Oct. 25 — a 16-point jump from 44% a week earlier, yet still behind the five-year average of 66%. The number lands with an asterisk: the 2026 reporting season is nearly over, and the department will publish only a few more weekly Crop Progress reports before the data stream goes quiet for the winter.

The report, covering the week through Oct. 25, shows a harvest that accelerated under mostly favorable weather. Speed, however, is not the same as yield. Nothing in a condition rating predicts bushels already measured across the scale.

What do the corn numbers actually say?

Corn condition barely moved. USDA rated 56% of the crop good-to-excellent, unchanged in any meaningful sense. The fair category slipped 1 point to 26%, while poor-to-very-poor rose 1 point to 18%.

Read that carefully. The shifts are small and the good-to-excellent share held steady, but a 1-point drift out of fair and into poor-territory is not the direction growers want heading into the final harvest reads. Condition ratings are survey judgments, not harvested results, and USDA's reporting window closes Sunday each week — late-week fieldwork lands in next week's tally.

Geographically, the top 18 production states show a wide spread:

• Tennessee: 98% harvested
• North Carolina: 96%
• Texas: 95%

The national 60% figure trails the 66% five-year average, and USDA offers no explanation for the gap in the progress tables themselves. Weather delays, acreage mix, or simple survey timing could each play a part; the report does not say.

Are soybeans the story instead?

Arguably yes. The soybean harvest reached 79% complete through Sunday, up from 64% a week ago and slightly ahead of the five-year average of 77%. After a season of catch-up, beans have moved in front of the benchmark.

State leaders among the top 18 production states:

• Mississippi: 98% harvested
• Minnesota: 93%
• Arkansas: 91%

One week of solid fieldwork produced a 15-point national gain. Whether that pace holds depends on weather the report can only describe, not forecast.

What about the other fall crops?

Every regional harvest USDA tracks posted double-digit or near-double-digit weekly gains, a sign of how many days were suitable for fieldwork across major growing regions:

• Cotton: 52%, up from 41%
• Sorghum: 56%, up from 46%
• Peanuts: 51%, up from 39%
• Sugarbeets: 75%, up from 55%
• Sunflowers: 46%, up from 24% — the largest weekly leap in the report

Sunflowers nearly doubled their harvested share in seven days, from 24% to 46%. That kind of jump usually signals a compressed window, not a leisurely one.

How is winter wheat planting going?

Winter wheat seeding moved from 63% to 76% complete through Sunday, within a point of the five-year average of 77%. Emergence crossed the halfway mark at 53%, fractionally behind the average of 54%.

The state spread is unusually wide: North Carolina has seeded just 24% of its intended acreage, while Washington has planted 98%. A national average that tight can hide a region struggling to get drill time in the field, and the report does not break out why the Carolinas lag.

For growers, planting pace feeds directly into stand establishment and, eventually, next year's insurance guarantees and input planning. A point of emergence delay is small; a 74-point planting gap between states is not.

What should readers watch next?

Treat all of these figures as progress, not production. USDA's condition scores and completion percentages describe the crop's status on paper; actual yields, basis movements and margin math arrive with harvest totals in later reports. The remaining weekly editions shrink in number from here, so the Oct. 25 snapshot may be among the last full pictures of the 2026 season. The next reports, and eventually the county yield data behind them, will show whether the bin fills matched the pace.