Southeast Iowa Crop Conditions

The area Southeast of Storm Lake has not made much progress over the last week. The corn is mostly all planted and a good portion of the soybeans are also getting done but the saturate dsoil is making the last portion of soybeans difficult to get done. It does not take a large amount of rain to slow progress for a day or two in a “normal” year. This has been anything but a normal year. This has actually been the wettest 12 month period on record for this part of the country.

National corn planting progress is only at 67% complete, advancing 9% for the week ended Sunday night, 6-2-19. We are normally at 84% by now. This is the slowest corn planting pace in the last 40 years according to USDA. Most of the area located Southwest of Storm Lake has been fortunate to get the corn planted with adequate emerged plant populations considering the excessive moisture. Other areas in Northwest Iowa and the rest of the corn belt have been less fortunate.

National soybean planting progress was also slow last week, estimated to be only 39%completed compared to the average of 79%. This was an advancement of 10% from theprevious week. The slow pace is not from a lack of capacity to get the work done by farmers but mostly from the lack of dry soil with enough structure to support the weight of machinery being
driven over it. If the ground was all in good condition and farmers did not have to worry about wet areas, they could likely plant 30-40% of the crop in a week. Unfortunately a lot of the fieldswill not dry out fast enough to allow for planting.

The corn and soybean markets have rallied for the last couple weeks entirely from the weather delayed planting. Crop insurance deadlines for planting corn with full coverage have come and gone. Now farmers have to decide if they still want to plant corn with reduced insurance coverage into mid-June knowing they will likely be taking a yield reduction. The soybean final planting date before reductions in coverage is not for another 11 days.Below is a picture of what happens to a planter when the ground is too wet to be planting. Themud will very quickly plug up the planter and not allow it to work anymore.