Tag Archives: Corn Belt

2011 Corn Crop Isn’t Necessarily Behind

Posted on by

There has been much talk recently about the wet, cold planting conditions throughout the country. On Saturday, a TV reporter said that only 2% of Iowa’s corn crop was planted as compared to the 16% that had been planted by the same time last year.

The percentage of corn in the ground by April 22 doesn’t mean the 2011 corn crop won’t be another bin-buster. Keep in mind that last spring’s soil and weather conditions allowed farmers to plant more acres much earlier than the norm. On average, only about 7% of Iowa’s corn acres has been planted at this time of year.

It’s easy to compare present conditions to just one year ago, so let’s take a minute to reflect on what happened in 2008. Spring rains in Iowa that year resulted in saturated soils, cool soil temperatures and soil conditions that were less than ideal for planting. Iowa State University Extension Corn Specialist Roger Elmore said, “Many farmers were guilty of ‘mudding in’ some corn that year. The penalty: reduced yields.” Click here to read Iowa State’s Integrated Crop Management NEWS from May 2008.

It’s documented: Reduced yields result from planting under conditions that are too wet and too cold. Keep this in mind the next time someone says, “It pays to plant early.” And then chides you because your planter isn’t yet rolling.

“Regardless of calendar date, producers should wait for suitable seedbed conditions and the short-term forecast calls for pleasant weather,” advises Elmore.

Remember that although you may not have your corn planted as early as last year, it’s still “early.” There are literally weeks of optimal planting dates left, and on average, farmers need only one week or less to get all of their corn acres planted.

You can afford to take the extra time to wait for seedbed conditions to improve. In fact, exercising patience now will mostly likely pay dividends this fall. When conditions are far less than ideal, it pays more to wait!

Prosperous Harvest Underway

Posted on by

Northeast Iowa

Corn harvest is just getting underway in Nick Benson’s territory. There have been good drying conditions, and corn is coming out of the field with 17 to 23 percent moisture. Yields are great. One of his customers, who planted Latham® Hi LH 5426 VT3 PRO, saw yields of 240 to 280 b/A on a field that usually goes 200 to 220 b/A. Yields are extremely variable this year and, Nick says, they appear to be completely rain dependent. In areas that received too much water during the growing season, yield dropped 20%, but yields are 10 to 20% higher in areas that received just the right amount of rain. Some areas experienced trouble with stalk rot due to this excess moisture. Below is a short video where Nick shares how to test for stalk rot.

YouTube Preview Image

Soybean yields are phenomenal this year, Nick said, and it helps that SDS hasn’t been much of a problem here. Yesterday Nick walked a field of Latham® soybeans and, on the first plant that he randomly pulled, he counted 165 pods. Many of his customers are seeing high 60s and 70s as field averages. One customer called late last night when his yield monitor hit 80 b/A, and the whole field average was 68 b/A.

Wisconsin

Many combines started hitting harvest hard this week in Wisconsin, says Steve Bailie. Growers are seeing 200-bushel yields in corn and 55-bushel averages in beans. One of Steve’s customers was extremely pleased that Latham® Hi-Tech Hybrids LH 5228 VT3 averaged 180 b/A on a marginal ground. Latham® products were planted for the first time on several Wisconsin farms, so many customers are looking forward to seeing what yields will come their way. Steve has been working closely with his customers to check stalks and inform them which fields they should start combining. He says this service seems to be of great value to them. 

Central Iowa

Kevin Meyer says corn harvest has picked up throughout the region over the past seven days. Farmers starting with corn had great weather for an early harvest with moistures in the teens and yields surprisingly a little better than last year. There are a few stalk quality issues in the area, but farmers are getting in early to minimize crop loss. Latham® Hi-Tech Hybrids LH 5033 3000GT and LH 5228 VT3 are performing strong in the early 100-day maturities. Soybean harvest progressed the latter part of the week, and again, yields are somewhat surprising. With widespread SDS in the area, yields of high 50s to low 60s b/A are being reported. Early Group 2 maturities are currently being harvested, with Latham® Hi-Tech Soybeans L2085R and L2182R2 leading the pack.

East Central Iowa

Harvest is underway East Central Iowa with corn yields ranging from 120 to 190 bushels per acre. Much of the corn has poor stalk quality and must be harvested in a timely fashion. Brad Beatty reports that Latham® Hi-Tech Hybrids LH 5777 SS was checked on Friday with a yield of 177 b/A, 18.5% moisture and a 58.5 pound test weight in a corn-on-corn situation. Very few soybeans have been harvested, and most beans in this area are about a week away from harvest. 

South Central Iowa

Travis Slusher’s farm received more than three inches of rain from Saturday through Tuesday night. Areas south of him have received well over five inches. Needless to say, harvest has come to a standstill here. What corn was harvested last week had Latham® HI-Tech Hybrids LH5777 SS yielding well at 18% moisture with LH5896 VT3 and LH6068 VT3 showing great yields and moisture in the low 20s for the growing conditions that they had to endure this season. Soybean harvest has been slow and spotty as the majority of the beans are not ready to cut. Yields have been from the mid-40 bushel range in areas with heavy SDS pressure to mid 60s in areas that didn’t experience heavy SDS pressure. Travis wishes everyone a safe and productive harvest season. Be safe out there!

Northwest and North Central Iowa

Harvest is slowly underway in the northernmost part of the state. Tom Larson says it’s too early to make concrete statements on yields, but it appears that soybeans are averaging 50 to 60 bushels per acre in the better fields and corn is making 180 to 200 bushels per acre. With all of the precipitation so far this week and more in the forecast, Tom isn’t expecting much harvest activity this week.

South Dakota

Corn in South Dakota is estimated at 45% mature as compared to 10% last year. The soybean crop is also ahead of last year with 75% of the leaves dropped. Unfortunately, rainfall is slowing down harvest. Another two inches of rain is expected during the next two days. A few acres of high-moisture corn have been harvested. Bill has also heard reports of corn moisture in the teens, so these fields are ready for harvest as soon as the weather cooperates. 

Crop Report: Harvest is Underway

Posted on by

Wisconsin

A customer in northeast Wisconsin called Steve Bailie this week to report he harvested 31 ton per acre of corn silage with Latham Hi-Tech Hybrids LH 5092 RR. In 2009, this same hybrid yielded 264 bushels per acre (b/A) as dry grain for the same customer. Also, last week in northern Wisconsin, we moisture tested LH 4303 and it has dried down to 26% already. 

Many growers are looking forward to the fact that they should not have as much drying cost in 2010 as they did in 2009. With that being said, however, Steve is encouraging growers to harvest as soon as possible because the amount of disease in corn is higher than it’s been over the past 10 years. He’s seeing anthracnose, like the photo below that was taken last Friday in a field in southwest Wisconsin. His territory has received 20- to 35-mile per hour winds, which doesn’t help the standability of diseased corn plants. 

Soybeans have started to turn, and it appears that yields will be very satisfying in many areas of the state. We have been seeing consistent three-bean pods. Many four-bean pods have been found in Latham’s Genuity® Roundup Ready to Yield® Soybeans. Last Thursday a professor from Southwest Wisconsin Technical College (SWTC) ran a yield check in a field of Latham® beans counted 102 b/A. One thing to keep in mind when doing soybeans yield checks is to be careful with a soybean yield check because of the amount of field variability. 

South Central Iowa

Crops are progressing well with the early maturity beans turning and dropping leaves in South Central Iowa. Travis Slusher did some moisture checks on corn with the majority being in the 22-25% moisture range mid week last week.

While traveling over the Labor Day weekend, he saw harvest in full swing in northeast Indiana with areas across northern Indiana just starting. He didn’t see much harvesting along I-80 across Illinois, but the crops are nearly ready. There were also some combines running just west of the Mississippi River in Iowa.

South Dakota

Farmers continue cutting silage, planting winter wheat and are preparing machinery for row- crop harvest in South Dakota. Growing degree accumulation is ahead of the average from several days to two weeks. About all the corn is through the R4 stage: 80% is in the R5 stage and 10 % is in the R6 stage, which is ahead of last year and the five year average. However, soybeans are not ahead of last year’s crop. About 30% of the soybeans have dropped leaves and are just starting to go into the R8 stage. Bill Eichacker says they definitely do not need an early frost for this crop.

Northern Missouri

Rick Foster reports that corn harvest has started in Clark County, Missouri. Corn moisture is running 22%. Bean pods are filling fairly quickly now with some beans starting to mature. 

Northeast Iowa

This week silage harvest will wrap up in Nick Benson’s area. Reports from the field have been tremendous for LH 5494 3000GT as this hybrid is showing very impressive silage tonnage! Farmers here are also getting positive silage results from LH 5474 HXT. This area has had tremendous drying over the last couple of weeks with reports of corn coming in at 20% moisture.

Nick says corn will likely be harvested before beans. The biggest concern at this moment is stalk rot. This is the time to be out tipping stalks and checking for fields that are more apt to go down during a late season wind event. He suggests that farmers begin by looking in corn-on-corn fields and then narrowing it down by hybrid type. Some hybrids can handle stalk rot better than others, so checking with your seed consultant will help in this regard. 

With taking notes in his observation plot, Nick says everything looks way above average with regard to yield potential. He says he’s never seen a plot that has this nice of ear set. He has a lot of optimism for high yields in areas that are well drained and that had ample nitrogen throughout the season.

North Central Iowa

Kevin Meyer reports harvest is underway in the north central Iowa. Combines have slowly started in early varieties and have found corn around 20% moisture. Early yields on 99-day hybrid products are comparable to or a little higher than last year. Yields are variable going across the fields as expected with stalk quality issues being a concern. Producers will take advantage of the weather this week to get an early start on this year’s harvest. Soybeans are turning very fast, but there has been no harvesting as of Tuesday. Latham Hi-Tech Soybeans with the Genuity® Roundup Ready to Yield technology continue to look good and have producers eager to get started with harvest.

Northwest Iowa

Crops continue on a fast track of maturity this week in North Central Iowa and Northwest Iowa, says Tom Larson. Two weeks seems to be the magic number until harvest begins. As the plants shut down, there are some easy observations that can be made: corn hybrids that have more defensive characteristics look to have higher yield potential this year. Latham Hi-Tech Hybrids with Agrisure look very impressive. Latham’s soybeans with the Genuity® Roundup Ready 2 Yield® trait look like they’re going to dominate. He received a report yesterday that L1985R2 had 176 pods on one plant. Harvest will be fun!

East Central Iowa

Brad Beatty says he’s looking forward to seeing farmers at field days, which are scheduled nearly every day in his territory. Corn silage chopping is ending, and hay producers are mowing their final cutting for the year. If a producer plans on keeping hay ground, it’s best to have the final cutting mowed by Sept. 15 to give the crop a chance to rest going into winter. Wet weather has caused most alfalfa fields to have dead spots, so some producers plan to make a late cutting and then not keep this ground in alfalfa for next year.

West Central Iowa

It appears that North Central Iowa crops are about one week ahead of West Central Iowa crops, according to Bart Peterson. He said farmers in the Fort Dodge area started combining on Tuesday. With harvest underway, Bart wants to remind farmers to check their corn fields for root rot or stalk root. Prioritize which fields to harvest first since this area is receiving more than its fair share of high winds. Harvesting fields with weak stocks first can save many bushels of corn from falling on the ground, where a combine has a hard time picking it up. Drying cost can be cheap compared to lost bushels on the ground.

Photo courtesy of Iowa State University Extension