Northwest Iowa Crop Conditions

Rainfall continues to be highly variable this season in NW Iowa. The Northern counties continue to get more rain. Parts of Osceola, O’Brien, and Clay counties received 5 inches of rain last week and patchy hail. These areas had local flooding. Other areas seem to consistently miss rains or get smaller amountsand could use more rain. Warm to seasonable temps continue, which make the crops grow quickly as longas moisture is available. We don’t have serious concerns about a lack of moisture yet, but that could quickly change if the warm trend continues through the summer.

The earlier planted corn is ahead of schedule in size and growth stage, and the later planted corn is growing quickly to catch up. Most corn looks very good. The trouble spots are areas that got too wet eitherbefore or after planting. We may start to see some corn tassel around the 4th of July which is early for us.A lot of soybeans are getting sprayed this week for weeds. The beans vary in size depending on plantingdate (which was a wide range this year). It looks like most of the late planted beans emerged ok, but theareas that keep getting heavy rains have issues. Most beans have an acceptable stand by now with good yield potential.

The gran markets are under downward pressure from the new Chinese tariffs on U.S. exports, crop condition ratings and weather outlooks are generally good across the county, and speculative traders that were holding very large long positions have sold those contracts in a big way when the down trend
developed.