Southeast Iowa Crop Conditions

Welcome back to another growing season!

This is normally a busy time of year for farmers as they are busy finishing up preparing equipment and getting started on spring field work. Unfortunately Mother Nature is reminding us who is in charge again this year. As I write this update, it is snowing outside and the forecast for the next two weeks calls for continued cold and wet. Planting will not start until at least the second half of April in Northwest Iowa but it is still not a concern at this point because farmers are so well equipped with planting capacity. 10 good days of planting will get corn planted and maybe a start on soybeans.

Grain markets have improved since the beginning of the year. The USDA released their annual planting intentions report last Thursday, March 29 . Most everyone was surprised to see both corn and soybean acres reduced from last year. Corn acres are projected to be 88.026 million acres (90.2 million last year) and soybean acres at 88.067 million acres (90.1 million last year) . Both numbers were below expectations, especially the soybean acres. These new fundamental numbers sent the corn market up 14cents on the day, while soybeans improved 26-31 cents on the day.
Current view outside my window