Northeast Iowa Crop Conditions

Harvest moved into high gear last week. Farmers are doing soybeans where field and crop conditions allow. Yields are generally about as expected; good, but not records. Early planted soybeans are better, yields drop off on the beans planted in June, which unfortunately were a lot of acres in this area this year. I would estimate at least 2/3 of the soybean harvest is completed, and the last should be completed after things dry up from rains over the last
weekend.

A few early planted corn fields are being harvested. Yields are good in most cases, and the crop has dried down better than expected. There is a lot of June planted corn that just reached maturity before the first killing frost mid-month. It will be interesting to see how yields hold up when we get to those fields in November.

Grain markets have shown some strength recently. The latest USDA report released on October 11 projects national corn yields at 168 bu/acre and soybeans at 46 bu/acre. These numbers are supportive to prices, especially the soybeans. That market has been struggling with way too much supply, but with a reduction of acres and yields this year, stocks will be cut
substantially. Trade talks with China took a more positive turn recently, which is also supportive to the markets. Nothing is in writing yet, but it looks like things are progressing towards that stage later in November. Fingers firmly crossed