Southwest Iowa Crop Conditions

Southwest of Storm Lake

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

August 30, 2013

Past Weeks Rainfall: The story remains the same – spotty showers with extreme western Iowa faring better than most

Soil Moisture: Dry in most fields. Some areas rec’d good rains of more than l” last Saturday (the 21st) Most areas were closer to 3/lOths

Temperature: Highs in the 80’s and lower 90’s. Night-time in the 60’s and low 70’s. Humid.

Crop Progress: 2 weeks behind normal

Corn

Crop Stage: Kernels are denting or fully crop dented. Stalk and leaf health is Stage generally quite good.

Yield Potential: There will be a lot of good corn in our southwestern territory, perhaps the best territory for us this year. Not sure many will approach record yields, but most will be pretty good.

Soybean

Crop Stage: Most are still shorter than normal but many fields reached waist high. Podding ranges from below normal to normal. Beans in pods are mostly barely formed but we are finding a few fields with plump beans in the pods.

Yield Potential: Yield potential varies a lot, Earlier beans appear to have set and developed more pods. Later beans have lost pods due to heat and dry weather stress. Late beans in fields that have been fortunate with rainfall still have good potential, to::i.

Corn Market

Current Prices: $5.80/bu

Fall Prices: $4.52/bu

Past Weeks Trend: Higher since Aug 13

Soybean Market

Current Prices: $14.37/bu

Fall Prices: $13.07/bu

Past Weeks Trend: Higher since Aug 6

Comments:

Dennis Reyman AFM, ARA

August weather has been beneficial to some parts of our southwestern territory but generally speaking, another two inches of rain would have made the big difference. Corn is “tipped-back” one to 2.5 inches in most cases, and not unusual to find 3 inch tip-back. Even so, there are a lot of well formed kernels and ears on each stalk. Colonel death is the main question now. A good rain and nice finish to the growing season could still add yield with improved kernel depth. Early frost is a concern for many fields but not to the extent we see in other areas. If we can get to the normal first-frost date of October 5, there will be little if any damage in this area. Corn dry-down is the main concern. Nice weather is needed to finish this crop and dry corn down before the days get short and the nights cooler in October. It takes around three weeks to go from full dent to physiological maturity. At that point, corn is safe from frost and kernels are around 30% moisture. With good weather, corn might then dry ½ to 1 point per day. Beans are safe from frost when the field appears to be about half yellow. So with a good September, our southwestern territory will do comparatively well.

Crop prices plunge in August but rebounded last week based on two things – the Pro Farmer Crop Tour results and the hot, dry forecast. Pro Farmer Found fewer bean pods than normal and corn yields that were less than traders anticipated. It confirmed our thoughts all along. It seems likely that corn and bean prices will work higher than lower, although there will surely be harvest time pressure on prices. Don’t expect corn to charge back to $7.00, however.

Crop Update Achives

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