From The Rows | Aug. 23, 2023 — Brent Judish (West)
Day 3 of Crop Tour is our longest and most demanding day of the week. We cross over into Iowa first thing in the morning and cover the Iowa Counties west of I35 from Missouri North to the Minnesota border, ending the day in Spencer.
Our route started in Missouri Valley north of Omaha, and covered the western most Iowa counties North all the way to the Minnesota border. We didn’t find any disease issues in our samples on the day, but did find two fields with some green snap in Lyon County. We counted the first field at 10% green snap, and the second field we counted at 12% green snap. I was a little surprised at how fast this corn and soybean crop is maturing. We consistently had corn samples that were 25 percent to 50 percent milk line. On the soybean side we had a number of fields where the whole field was starting to turn. I am a little concerned about the soybean plants and how they are handling this current heat we are experiencing. In counting pods on the soybean plants numerous times today I had pods fall off in my hands as I touched them. I have not had much issue with that in the past.
Our route encompasses fields in crop districts 4 and 1 in far Northwest Iowa. Our 23 corn samples averaged 178 BPA, with a high of 229 BPA in Monona County and a low of 123 in Osceola County. The average for this area last year was 181 BPA, and the three year average was 183 BPA. We thought maybe we would be a little better than last year and near the three year average. We just didn’t get the ear length to support that. The ear count and kernel rows came in real close to the three-year average.
One thing that struck me today was the temperature change we encountered as we entered the corn fields. It’s been over 100 degrees each of the last three days, but when we get into the corn field and go past the end rows and go 35 more paces into the field to do our sample the temperature goes up noticeably. This extreme heat is coming at the wrong time for this corn crop as we are currently in the grain fill period of the growing season. This time in the growing season needs to be highs in the 80’s and night time lows in the 60’s. We are not getting that this year. (Temperature in Spencer at 11:26 p.m. is 83 degrees.)
On the soybean side we had an average number of pods on my route in a 3x3 square of 1047, with a high of 2138 pods in Dickinson County and a low of 457 pods in Woodbury County. Last year the average in Districts 1 and 4 was 1173 pods, and the three-year average is 1142 pods. My concern is how this soybean crop is going to finish with the heat this week and with no rain in the short-term forecast. In the Ute, Iowa area we did come across two fields that were starting to turn yellow meaning that any more rain on these fields will probably not help the yield factory from today going forward.
Tomorrow we leave Spencer and head north and northeast and work our 10 routes towards and ending up in Rochester. Looks like one more extremely hot day to endure.
