Southeast Iowa Crop Conditions

Welcome Back!

I’m starting a little earlier than normal this year with the crop conditions, but with the recent weather conditions we thought it was necessary to give an update.

The majority of the flooding concerns are located west of your farm if your ground is Southeast of Storm Lake. That doesn’t mean that there is not standing water on fields in this direction; it just means it is nothing more than any other spring. There are some ponds in the usual low lying areas of fields caused by the rapid melting of snow and some rain over the last 2 weeks. Surface intakes on tile systems are taking away the ponds and the ground is thawing. This will allow the excess
moisture in the soil from last fall to make it’s way to drainage systems and start getting fields ready for spring field work.

Long-term forecasts that have recently been released are not looking very promising for early planting this year. Cool and wet weather on top of unprecedented soil moisture will most likely cause a few delays to planting. There are a lot of fertilizer applications and tillage that is normally done in the fall that still needs to be completed.Time will tell but Mother Nature will once again tell us what we will be able to do this spring.