Southeast Iowa Crop Conditions

Rainfall this year has either been a blessing or a curse depending on where you a located. Parts ofCalhoun, Webster, and Hamilton Counties have been continuously hit with heavy rain over and over. If you are located south of US Highway 20, things probably were getting a little dry. Rain variability has been the story of this growing season so far. Even with the struggles we have seen, crops in most areas look like they are doing very well. This is being reflected by the weekly USDA crop condition updates released every Monday afternoon. Both corn and soybean state and national ratings are historically high for this point of the season.

Most corn fields have been sprayed with the post application of herbicide and are rapidly growing. Canopy will likely be reached by this weekend for later planted corn, while earlier planted corn fields have already achieved good canopy.

Soybeans are coming along nicely. Some of the later planted soybeans had a tougher time with emergence from excessive moisture, but generally the stands are adequate to produce a good yield. Most soybean fields will get sprayed within the next 10 days depending on the rain and field conditions. The recent rains have produced some ponds that we may be able to replant depending on when the ground finally dries.

The markets have collapsed over the last two weeks as good crop condition ratings, Chinese tariffs, and generally positive weather have all weighed heavily. Speculative traders have been active sellers during the drop as they liquidate their long positions and will likely have turned those into short positions by the time we see the next commitment of traders report on Friday.

Here is an example of what happens when we receive 5-6 inches of rain in 4 hours.