Southwest Iowa Crop Conditions

Flooding. How bad is it? That’s the most common question from clients and others in the past week. The answer is for most of our area, not much out of the ordinary for this time of year. The ground is still frozenso there is ponding in low areas, but that’s not unusual for late March. The snow pretty well melted with the heavy rain last week during the “bomb cyclone”. We were on the eastern edge of that storm, receivingmostly rain and heavy fog for several days. The rapid snow melt and rain has flooded rivers but that’s alsocommon or early spring. The Little Sioux hit its 2nd highest peak ever last week. Other rivers in westernIowa have been similar. River bottoms are under water, including much of the Missouri River bottom.
However, the bad flooding is nearer to Omaha and on south to St. Joe. Rivers in Nebraska have been terrible and that is what is dominating the news. Our area is nothing like that. The town of Hornick in southern Wood bury County was flooded from a broken levee and they are now in the midst of clean-up.The 10-day forecast is now favorable, and we’ll need a good week to begin fertilization and other pre-planting jobs. Tillage in wet ground is a strict no-no, so that’s a ways off too.

Crop markets continue to slide sideways. Many think (hope) a rally may occur due to wet weather and possibly purchases by China. So far, corn price has moved to the upper side of its winter-long range and beans stay just over $8.00.

The next big USDA crop report will be March 29 and will include the Quarterly Grain Stocks & Prospective Plantings. The monthly Crop Production report comes out on March 8 .