WEST LAFAYETTE — Recent heavy rains have flooded nine percent of the corn acreage, nine percent of the soybean acreage and five percent of the winter wheat crop, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's crop report released June 16.

The southwest district of the state, which includes Evansville, Freelandville, Shoals, Stendal and Vincennes, received the most crop damage with 16 percent of the areas corn acreage flooded, as well as the soybean acreage. Six percent of the wheat acreage was reported as flooded in the southwest district.

The southwest district was followed closely by the southcentral district, in terms of crop acreage flooded – 13 percent for both corn and soybeans and 9 percent for flooded wheat acreage. The southcentral district includes the areas surrounding Leavenworth, Oolitic and Tell City.

These numbers come from questions added to the USDA's weekly crop progress survey in Indiana.

"We added the flood numbers to the weekly crop progress report because everyone wanted to know how the floods were affecting Indiana," Greg Matli said. He’s deputy director of the Indiana office for USDA’s National Agriculture Statistics Service located at Purdue University. "Calls were coming in from the governor's office, Farm Service Agency offices, Chicago Board of Trade and newspapers wanting information.

"There was obviously a demand and we already had the system in place to get that information, so we decided to add a few questions to our weekly survey and now people know what's going on."

Indiana has 97 percent of its corn planted with 93 percent emerged and only 55 percent of it is rated in good to excellent condition. Hoosier soybean growers have 80 percent of their crop planted with 70 percent emerged and 52 percent considered in good to excellent condition.