Counties of: Buena Vista, Cherokee, Clay, Dickinson, Lyon, O’Brien, Osceola, Plymouth, Sioux
The planting outlook hasn’t changed since my last crop update. The soil remains too cold, currently at about 37 degrees. We even had a few inches of snow on Easter! We’re happy to get the moisture, but it’s certainly not the spring weather we’ve been hoping for. The newest two week forecast from the National Weather Service is leaning dry with colder than average temperatures persisting into early May.
Planting is somewhat behind schedule at this point, but we’re not too concerned about it yet. General recommendations for planting corn include: top-soil conditions with enough moisture for germination but not too wet causing smearing and compaction, soil temps at 50 degrees or higher, and a warming forecast looking ahead several days after planting. It doesn’t appear we will reach those conditions in April. We prefer planting in mid-April when possible, but long term data from ISU and others indicates very little (if any) yield loss when corn is planted by May 18th and soybeans planted before June 1st. The modern trend is for earlier planting compared to years ago (especially on soybeans). This year won’t be early, but at the same time it’s not really time to call it late either.
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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