Preliminary Route Report with Chip Flory, western Tour leader
What counties (with state and district) have you sampled from?
Nebraska: Fillmore, Saline, Gage, Lancaster Counties
Corn yield range:
213, 201, 185, 148, 145, 176 bu. per acre
Corn yield average:
178.02 bu. per acre
Soybean pod count range in 3’x3’ square:
719 to 1968
Soybean pod count average in 3’x3’ square:
1,135.8
Please share a few comments from your route:
There’s some tipback and ear population problems. Not losing a lot from disease. The biggest issue is there are missing stalks and ears. Most of the crop is at the early dent stage, which is not unusual, but a little further along than we’d like to see with the heat pushing it along. On the disease front – all of the usual suspects, but nothing at a level that’s raising any alarms. We went through an area with fresh hail from last night, just east Dorchester, but nothing alarming.
One field with Brown stem rot, seed development looks good. We’re generally unimpressed with the pod counts. Our pod counts have been really, really average for a bean crop so far and I don’t have an answer why right now. The crop is moving along nicely, we did see one field with a few blooms left at the top. There certainly is no shortage of moisture at this very moment.
Preliminary Route Report with Brent Judisch, western Tour consultant
What counties (with state and district) have you sampled from?
Nebraska: Hamilton, York, Saline, Fillmore – all irrigated
Corn yield range:
165.11 to 213.72 bu. per acre
Corn yield average:
193.54 bu. acre.
Soybean pod count range in 3’x3’ square:
912 to 2112.8
Soybean pod count average in 3’x3’ square:
1,339.11
Please share a few (one to three) comments from your route:
Wow - there’s been a lot of rain in Nebraska this morning. In my 14 years on this leg of the Crop Tour, I’d bet today’s rain exceeds the combined total of all previous years.
This is an average irrigated corn crop. The reason is because there is a lot of tipback relating to the fact that the western Corn Belt had a warm July and high overnight temps. We spoke with a farmer along the path, who thinks there were no overnight lows below 70 for a straight week in July. This is my fourteenth Tour – this is the least amount of wind/hail in all 14 years. There has been some hail damage and leaves that have been affected, but nothing that has dinged yield. The crop we’ve tested is about 20% dented, which is right on track. There is very little disease, some northern leaf blight and some tar spot. Winds have been lighter this year, and have kept diseases from creeping in. We haven’t seen many insects; we had only one sample that had a worm in it.
The bean crop has been solid. There has been some minor signs of disease. There have been two fields that had disease on the stem, but it hasn’t affected standability. We haven’t seen any white mold or sudden death. There has been some insect damage – just chewing on the leaves. There have been reports of western bean cutworm recently, but we have not come across any. The crop is right on par with maturity – we haven’t seen any flowers; everything is podding consistently. Today’s rain will definitely give the bean crop a boost in this area.