Northeast Iowa Crop Conditions

We have had a stretch of very pleasant summer weather over the last 2 weeks. Temperatures have been near normal with highs mostly from the upper 70’s to mid-80’s, and relatively cool nights. All of the corn has completed pollination and the weather throughout has been near ideal. Rainfall has been short over the last 2 weeks, and while subsoil moisture is holding up well, it would be good to get an inch or so to replenish topsoil levels. The soybeans are still putting on some flowers, but are mostly in the pod fill stage. Some aphid spraying is taking place, but levels haven’t been too bad up to this point. Overall, the crops look good, but we are still behind, and some warmer weather would help to push things along.

The corn market has had a rough couple of weeks. The big blow came this week, when the USDA estimate of planted acres and yields taken at the first of the month were both well above industry estimates. There is still a lot of uncertainty in how many acres will be harvested given the unprecedented amount of late planting, prevented planting this year, but it looks like it will take until harvest to sort everything out. An analog year was 1993, when the extent of yield loss
from that wet, cool growing season was not seen until harvest. Mid-season growing conditions have been better this year, but we still have a long way to go.

Soybeans have held up much better than corn, as planted acres are forecast well below earlier estimates. The widely watched Pro Farmer crop tow will make its way across the Midwest next week. This will be the first large effort to assess what is in the fields this year. It should be an interesting week.