I travel extensively from Colorado to Ohio and North Dakota/Minnesota to Louisiana and work in the Ag industry.
There is still a drought in southern Kansas/south east Colorada and one getting started in Central Illinois and Indiana.
BUT, the corn crop in Arkansas, Nebraska, Iowa, South Dakota, and Louisiana is going great guns this year.
I am speaking from first hand observation.
Three weeks of sustained hot, dry weather across much of the United States has propelled the grain complex higher with corn leading the way.
After the markets closed, the Department of Agriculture reported that 40 percent of the U.S. corn crop was rated in good to excellent condition, a drop of 8 percentage points from the previous week and the biggest weekly decline in nine years.
Sizzling temperatures abated in the Corn Belt over the weekend, but rains this week were expected to miss the areas that need moisture most. Forecasts indicate that Iowa and Illinois, the two biggest U.S. corn and soybean producing states, should be mostly dry for the next 10 days...
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/09/us-markets-grains-idUSBRE8681BN20120709