Southwest Iowa Crop Conditions

Weather has been normal for early spring. Mild and windy most days, some days pretty ideal, others fairly uncomfortable. Some planting will begin today in fields where soils are fit. I don’t expect next Monday’s progress report to show much planted, perhaps 5% at most.

Grain markets are on their wildest ride in quite some time in the past week. Corn held firm during the tariff ride while beans dropped about 55 cents in 3 days, then recovered 45 cents, all within 7 days. As of this writing, old-crop corn is within 15 cents of its post-harvest high and beans are middle of their post-harvest range. Both appear to have some potential for a modest spring or early summer rally. New-crop corn bids have labored in the low $4’s and new-crop beans mostly from $9.25 to $9.75 since harvest. The bean market has some similarities to the 2015/16 market which peaked in June.

Land market is fairly quiet with steady values. RLI survey as of March 1^st showed a six month change of -1.6% for west-central Iowa, which equates to a couple hundred dollars on average land.