Northwest Iowa Crop Conditions

The cool wet pattern continues this month. Last week we had light frost in the area, which caused upper leaf damage in soybeans. The yield damage will very from none to as much as 20% depending on the soybean maturity, planting date, and location. This was not a large scale event, so the markets did not respond. We don’t believe the frost will have a significant impact on corn yield.

Corn and soybeans are both near maturity, but they are making very slow progress because of the weather.Soybean harvest could start in a week or two depending on the weather. Corn harvest will start in October, but we expect slow progress because the corn will need to be dried. Yields for corn and soybeans should be good except where drainage is a problem.

The grain markets are still moving lower because of the large crop expected. Corn prices are currently at 4 year lows. The USDA’s September report confirmed the oversupply of corn at 14.395 billion bu and a 171.7 yield and projects 2.0 billion bu US ending stocks.