Crop TrackerCrop Tracker · Worked example
Ahead on planting. Lower on condition.
Compare the same reporting week across years without confusing planting progress with crop condition.
Illustrated walkthrough · example data. These are teaching panels, not a recording of the application. All percentages are invented for an unnamed example state and a matched reporting week. They are not a current USDA release, an actual state report or a field observation.
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Every step, in words
Demonstration transcript
Silent, captioned demonstration. No audio track. Read at your own pace or use the player’s step controls.
- 0:00–0:12
Match the context
Use corn, the same fictional state and the same reporting week across the comparison series.
Match the reporting period
- 0:12–0:24
Compare planting pace
The example current year is 65% planted, compared with a 50% five-year average.
+15 percentage points
- 0:24–0:36
Add good and excellent
Current-year good is 50% and excellent is 18%. Their combined share is 68%.
68% good + excellent
- 0:36–0:48
Compare condition separately
The example previous year totals 72% good plus excellent. Current condition is 4 percentage points lower.
−4 percentage points
- 0:48–1:00
State only what the data supports
Faster planting and lower condition can coexist. Neither percentage establishes a field yield or explains the cause.
Different metrics, different questions