Preliminary Route Report with Lane Akre, eastern Tour leader
What counties (with state and district) have you sampled from?
Indiana: Hancock, Shelby, Johnson, Putnam
Corn yield range:
68 to 246 bu. per acre
Corn yield average:
162 bu. per acre
Soybean pod count range in 3’x3’ square:
670.8 to 2,108
Soybean pod count average in 3’x3’ square:
1,372
Please share a few (one to three) comments from your route:
The crop is far more mature than we thought and there’s a lot more moisture. We’re seeing more disease today than yesterday, largely because the crops are farther along. Northern Leaf Blight is the main disease we’ve come across, but nothing else really. Some of the crop is starting to dent, but there are a lot of pollination issues. In a third of our samples, a third of the ears were affected. One field had light weed pressure and there was one field that had some goosenecked corn. The storm damage on our route was fairly localized. We did see some flooded crops – with the entire corn plant under water near Eugene, Indiana.
Overall, the bean crop is better than I would have thought, the pod counts have been good. Maturity wise- pods are filling and the crops are done flowering. We did find more sudden death the further west we went. Japanese beetles were present in some fields, which had been nibbling on some leaves. There’s plenty of moisture to round out the bean crop out.
Preliminary Route Report with Kyle Wendlund, eastern Tour consultant
What counties (with state and district) have you sampled from?
Indiana: Hamilton, Boone, Hendricks, Parke, Vermillion counties Illinois: Edgar, Coles, Douglas, Moultrie, Piatt, Macon, Dewitte counties
Corn yield range:
IN: 152.64 to 213.3 bu. per acre
IL: 137.38 to 226.3 bu. per acre
Corn yield average:
IN: 182.01 bu. per acre
IL: 177.65 bu. per acre
Soybean pod count range in 3’x3’ square:
IN: 829 to 2268
IL: 676.08 to 1,752.96
Soybean pod count average in 3’x3’ square:
IN: 1,533.35
IL: 1,260.35
Please share a few comments from your route:
The corn crop is pretty good, still seeing northern leaf blight along with very noticeable wind and hail damage, with the worst of it lasting around 5 miles around the Arthur, IL area. One field of corn that had hail damage was being chopped for silage. The crop was very mature overall — the really low yielding sample was immature — but generally the crop was mostly dented. One field of corn that had some of the worst corn smut I’ve ever seen. There was an ear with smut every 10 feet in one field. It was definitely a lot drier as we moved south and west. Every stop we still had mud on our boots, but it wasn’t standing water or two inches of mud like we had yesterday.
Beans were pretty far along maturity wise and there has been very little disease. There was a little sudden in a few fields around Paris and Kansas, IL. The bean crop has adequate moisture, but not a bit dry. Beans were done flowering and podding nicely. We didn’t come across any insects to speak of.