Northwest Iowa Crop Conditions

We had two nice rains last week. Not everyone got as much rain as they wanted, but most f arms in the Northwest region received a half inch or more. T he rain was timely with this week’s high temperature running in the mid 90’s.

Corn is filling kernels. Stress at this stage can still hurt yield but not as badly as it could have during pollination last month. T he warm weather is helping the corn toward maturity. Areas short of moisture could suffer reduced yields from shallow kernel f ill.

T he soybeans crop is filling pods. T hey have a long way to go to make normal yields. We are seeing generally low pod numbers. Many of the soybeans will be vulnerable to an early frost this year.The grain markets are moving higher (especially soybeans) due to the hot forecast and estimations of lower than expected yields.