Counties of: Buena Vista, Cherokee, Clay, Dickinson, Lyon, O’Brien, Osceola, Plymouth, Sioux
An early spring has arrived! We’ve already had a few 80-degree days in April so far. The 4inch soil temp has already reached about 58 degrees. However, the next two weeks look to be cooler. This area is expected to get 1 to 2 inches of rain this week which would be very welcome. NW Iowa received near average rain/snow amounts over the past few months, but not nearly enough to replenish the soil form the drought starting last July. The longer range weather outlook shows warmer than average temps with no clear trend on rainfall amounts.
Planting may start next week depending how much rain we get this week. The crop insurance planting date is April 11th on corn (for replant coverage), we don’t see many farmers plant before that. The relatively dry soil and warm weather outlook should lead to very fast planning progress. On one hand, that’s an excellent start – early planting and warm growing conditions, but it may also further deplete the already-low moisture reserves and increase drought risks for this summer.
Gran markets remain very strong. They started moving higher last fall and haven’t taken a major tumble since. The March 31st USDA Prospective Plantings report showed an expected increase of corn and soybean acres to be planted this year, but not nearly as much of an increase as expected. Corn and soybean markets responded with limit moves higher after the report was released. It seems likely USDA may have under estimated acres considering the high price incentive to plant as much as possible and dry conditions in the western corn belt (areas with lots of prevent plant acres in recent years). Either way,attention will be on the weather from here on. Given the tight supplies, a below trend line crop this year will push prices higher
Please click on the links on the right to view the past pdf’s of our Northwest Crop Conditions reports.
1705 N Lake Ave
Storm Lake, IA 50588
Real Estate Licensed in Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska and South Dakota.
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