USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service’s 2026-10-13 Crop Progress report describes faster harvest activity from the prior reading, while its comparisons still place both major crops below their 2021-2025 averages. Our reading is based on Mastermind Research’s coverage of the report; the harvest and condition estimates belong to USDA NASS, not to our desk.
USDA NASS reports 33% corn harvest
For observations ending 2026-10-11, USDA NASS put corn harvest at 33% in its 18-state panel. That was above the prior week’s 23%, yet below the 39% average for 2021-2025. The panel represented 93% of corn acreage harvested in 2025, so the aggregate is substantial, but it is still an acreage-weighted measure rather than a count of states moving at the same pace.
USDA NASS put soybean harvest at 46% across its separate 18-state panel for the same observation period. The estimate followed 25% a week earlier and sat below the 50% average for 2021-2025. That soybean group accounted for 96% of 2025 harvested soybean acreage, which makes the aggregate useful for tracking broad national progress without establishing that every producing area shares the result.
The condition figures give a second, distinct read on the crop. USDA NASS reported 44% of corn as good and 12% as excellent, producing a 56% combined reading versus 54% in the preceding week. For soybeans, 46% good plus 11% excellent produced 57%, unchanged from the prior report.
Iowa’s 14% corn figure remains well behind
Iowa corn harvest was 14%, compared with its 34% five-year average, according to USDA NASS. Iowa soybean harvest was 31%, compared with 59%. Those state comparisons make the slower local pace concrete, but they do not show whether the gap has the same size or cause elsewhere.
The report therefore supports a limited conclusion: harvest was advancing, but the published national aggregates remained below their recent reference averages and Iowa’s reported pace was also lower than its stated benchmarks. It does not measure yield, prices, company earnings, or the consequences for any particular firm. There are no independently produced Mastermind measurements in the supplied record that test those questions, so no agreement or disagreement can be established on them.
Why the 18-state totals are not simple state averages
Corn and soybean figures come from different 18-state panels. USDA NASS assigns harvest-progress influence using average harvested acreage from the preceding three crop years, while condition estimates use average planted acreage. A high or low state result therefore does not receive equal weight simply because it appears in the panel.
The corn condition panel covered states responsible for 91% of planted corn acreage in 2025, while the soybean condition panel covered 96% of planted soybean acreage in 2025. These coverage figures clarify why the national estimates carry weight, but they do not turn the estimates into a map of regional distribution.
What the next USDA NASS release could clarify
USDA NASS describes its inputs as a non-probability survey of approximately 3,600 respondents making subjective observations. The agency says the figures may be revised in the following week, and early responses can anticipate weekend changes. Watch the next release for revisions and for whether the pace relative to the cited averages changes; do not chase a single aggregate as proof of a uniform field outcome.
The 2021-2025 comparisons also need care. USDA NASS says corresponding prior-year estimates are unavailable because reporting was cancelled during the October-November 2025 federal funding lapse, and the cited averages combine published 2021-2024 information with imputed 2025 estimates. The report was published 2026-10-13, contains 16 pages, and records observations through 2026-10-11; those are separate clocks.