Colorado Crop Progress

NASS Mountain Region Director Bill Meyer shares details from Monday's Crop Progress Report. He says that the planting season for spring crops is just beginning.

Meyer: "We have 9 percent of the barley planted, 10 percent of the spring wheat, sugar beets 5 percent and onions 9 percent planted. The other thing people are really interested in right now — because it has been relatively a dry winter on the Eastern Plains in Colorado — are the soil moisture supplies. Last week a lot of snow or rain was received across a lot of the state. So our soil moisture supplies are rated at 76 percent adequate to surplus for the top soil. That is a little bit better than last year at this time but the subsoil moisture is rated 63 percent adequate to surplus which is down from last year."

He mentioned that some areas of the state had received snow and rain earlier this week and that should help. He continues with the winter wheat update.

Meyer: "The winter wheat some of it last fall was dusted in and I don't think it came up until this spring. The winter wheat condition right now it is rated lower than last year at this time. We had 21 percent of it rated poor, 35 percent fair, 32 percent good and 7 percent excellent. Last year at this time we had 55 percent of the crop rated good to excellent so that is down a bit, but I would anticipate now if we get some nice weather and continue to get some of these spring rains or moisture that will continue to go up for them."