Southwest Iowa Crop Conditions

Southwest of Storm Lake

Counties of: Woodbury, Ida, Sac, Monona, Crawford, Harrison, Shelby

August 14, 2023

Past Weeks Rainfall: Good overall rain on Saturday night and Sunday (5th & 6th), more showers since then.

Soil Moisture: Topsoil is damp with 47% of west-central Iowa rated “adequate”. Subsoil is rated short or very short on 2/3 of the area.

Temperature: Highs in the upper 70’s but headed to mid-90’s. Lows in the 60’s to low 70’s.

Crop Progress: Normal

Corn

Crop Stage: Dough to early dent stages

Yield Potential: Trend line or below

Soybean

Crop Stage: Flowering & podding

Yield Potential: Trend line

Corn Market

Current Prices: $5.56/bu

Fall Prices: $4.48/bu

Past Weeks Trend: Lower

Soybean Market

Current Prices: $13.26/bu

Fall Prices: $12.56/bu

Past Weeks Trend: Steady

Comments:

Dennis Reyman AFM, ARA

Rain beginning the first weekend of August has been a major blessing to revive many fields and help others to continue flourishing. Many fields and neighborhoods have missed too much rain for too long and August rainfall is sort of a “salvage” operation, especially for corn. Beans have good potential yet. How many fields will make new records for themselves? Probably some but not that many in this region of our territory.

Corn price has trended lower, as is normal for late summer. Beans have held closer to steady over the past several weeks. USDA’s WASDE report for August raised the outlook for next year’s average corn price to 10 cents to $4.90 and soybeans up 30 cents to $12.70. Both these are higher than the October bid, so USDA is projecting confidence that the market is probably not looking to trade too much lower over the next year. These estimates are altered monthly, of course.

Fertilizer prices have become very attractive this summer for fall application. If you have priced, it is worth a good strong look.

Crop Update Achives

Please click on the links on the right to view the past pdf’s of our Southwest Crop Conditions reports.