Northwest Iowa Crop Conditions

Harvest is progressing well ahead of normal schedule. Many farmers will finish soybeans soon and start on corn right away, others have already started on corn. Most year’s soybean harvest is just getting started in late September or in early October. Dry and warm weather fast-tracked harvest progress. We need to start rebuilding soil moisture this fall before the ground freezes, but the extended forecast remains dry well into October. Many creeks, small rivers, and ponds are running dry or very low. We are setup for the possibility of a much worse drought next year.

Soybean harvest is half done or better in this area. The early maturity beans are doneand the mid to late beans are next. The best way to describe the soybean crop this year is variable. Yield levels and moisture levels are varying wildly from field to field, within the field, and even within a single pass. Where the beans are dry, they are 8% to 9%
moisture (very dry), but in the same field there may be areas of 20% beans (way too wet). This is making harvest challenging to say the least. As the beans dry and regain moisture from due or rain over time, they start to even out. But the longer they stay in the field, pods will open up and lose beans. Yields are ranging from the 30’s to 70’s.
Overall, I’d say yields are down about 5 to 10 bushels per acre from last year.

Corn harvest has started also and not just high moisture corn. Some recently harvest corn is down under 17% moisture already. The dry corn will reduce drying costs, but harvest loss also tends to increase with drier corn. Also, stressed corn has weakened stalks. When corn is lacking moisture & nutrients, it robs what the ear needs from the
stalk leaving it more likely to go down. Most farmers will push corn harvest as soon as the beans are done. This probably isn’t a year to take chances on down corn. Yield levels are variable similar to beans.