US Crop Progress Report: Busy Week of Planting.

May 27, 2014

U.S. corn and soybean planting made a strong advance over the past week, thanks to very good conditions in some key growing areas. Still, parts of the Northern Midwest remain slower than normal due to wet weather and cool soil temperatures.

Corn: As of Sunday, 88% of this year’s corn crop is planted, compared to 84% this time last year and the five year average of 88%. 60% of corn has emerged, compared to 49% a year ago and 64% on average.

Soybeans: 59% are planted, compared to 41% last year and 56% on average, with 25% emerged, compared to 12% a year ago and 27% on average.

Winter wheat: actually improved a little last week, but it’s too late in the season to make all that much of a difference, with 70% of the crop headed, compared to the five year average of 69%. 30% of winter wheat is rated good to excellent, up 1% on the week, with 44% called poor to very poor, which was unchanged.

Spring Wheat: 74% of spring wheat is planted, compared to 82% on average, with 43% emerged, compared to 57% on average.

Pastures and Rangelands: 46% of U.S. pastures and rangelands are in good to excellent condition, 2% above a week ago.

For the complete USDA Crop Progress Report for May 27, 2014 click here: http://usda.mannlib.cornell.edu/usda/current/CropProg/CropProg-05-27-2014.pdf

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Video: Why Your Food Future Could be Trapped in a Seed Morgue

In a world of PowerPoint overload, Rex Bernardo stands out. No bullet points. No charts. No jargon. Just stories and photographs. At this year’s National Association for Plant Breeding conference on the Big Island of Hawaii, he stood before a room of peers — all experts in the science of seeds — and did something radical: he showed them images. He told them stories. And he asked them to remember not what they saw, but how they felt.

Bernardo, recipient of the 2025 Lifetime Achievement Award, has spent his career searching for the genetic treasures tucked inside what plant breeders call exotic germplasm — ancient, often wild genetic lines that hold secrets to resilience, taste, and traits we've forgotten to value.

But Bernardo didn’t always think this way.

“I worked in private industry for nearly a decade,” he recalls. “I remember one breeder saying, ‘We’re making new hybrids, but they’re basically the same genetics.’ That stuck with me. Where is the new diversity going to come from?”

For Bernardo, part of the answer lies in the world’s gene banks — vast vaults of seed samples collected from every corner of the globe. Yet, he says, many of these vaults have quietly become “seed morgues.” “Something goes in, but it never comes out,” he explains. “We need to start treating these collections like living investments, not museums of dead potential.”

That potential — and the barriers to unlocking it — are deeply personal for Bernardo. He’s wrestled with international policies that prevent access to valuable lines (like North Korean corn) and with the slow, painstaking science of transferring useful traits from wild relatives into elite lines that farmers can actually grow. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t. But he’s convinced that success starts not in the lab, but in the way we communicate.

“The fact sheet model isn’t cutting it anymore,” he says. “We hand out a paper about a new variety and think that’s enough. But stories? Plants you can see and touch? That’s what stays with people.”

Bernardo practices what he preaches. At the University of Minnesota, he helped launch a student-led breeding program that’s working to adapt leafy African vegetables for the Twin Cities’ African diaspora. The goal? Culturally relevant crops that mature in Minnesota’s shorter growing season — and can be regrown year after year.

“That’s real impact,” he says. “Helping people grow food that’s meaningful to them, not just what's commercially viable.”

He’s also brewed plant breeding into something more relatable — literally. Coffee and beer have become unexpected tools in his mission to make science accessible. His undergraduate course on coffee, for instance, connects the dots between genetics, geography, and culture. “Everyone drinks coffee,” he says. “It’s a conversation starter. It’s a gateway into plant science.”