Northeast Iowa Crop Conditions

With continued dry conditions, planting has progressed well, and is now wrapped up on corn and probably 80% + completed on soybeans. Cool weather over the last week has slowed emergence, but no concerns to this point as the forecast has a significant warm up for next week. It has been drier than normal, and it would be good to get a rain over the near term to soak up the topsoil. Tile lines are still running which shows there is plenty of moisture yet in the subsoil.

The markets have seemed to have stabilized recently. The WASDE report released this week projects large corn carryover supplies due to our reduced usage from Ethanol, but the estimates were not as bad as what was expected. Soybean
carryover supplies are actually trending downward, but we are highly depending on China stepping up imports, which in today’s geopolitical climate is no sure thing. Ethanol usage is starting to tick back up a little as more travel begins to take place,and there are rumors of some local ethanol plants making plans to start slowly increasing production. Every little bit helps, but no one is looking for a rapid recovery in corn prices without a serious weather problem.