From The Rows | Aug. 19, 2021 — Mark Bernard (East)
Final day of the 2021 Pro Farmer Crop Tour had us starting out just north of Nashua on another split route. The crew today was Dan Sturgill at the wheel and me along for the ride. The day went by very quickly. We worked in a businesslike manner and before we knew it, we’d pulled 8 samples for the day. We were in the IA counties of Floyd and Mitchell in crop reporting district 2. On the MN side, we sampled in the counties of Mower, Dodge and Olmsted, all district 9.
On our route today we saw an IA crop that disappointed in many respects. Our IA route average corn yield was 175 bu./acre with a high of 209 in Mitchell Co. and a low of 150 bu./acre also in Mitchell Co. At least so far, the crop is standing well as opposed to last year when the derecho had devastated large portions of the state. It’s been disheartening watching the crop go backwards and decline as we’ve moved north. More rain unfortunately isn’t going to add additional bushels, only maintain what’s already there.
On the SE MN part of our route, the pattern was much the same. The high was 191 bu./acre in Mower Co. with a low of 152 bu./acre in the same co. Issues such as low stand counts and ear girth were major factors. Being a rain gauge observer for the MN Climatology Working Group, I also noticed many times over the course of the growing season that more bountiful rains fell in parts of counties than others, my own included. Color me not surprised.
Our soybean pod counts lacked the consistency we’d encountered the past three days. On the IA portion of the route today our 3’x3’ measurement averaged only 825 pods. The high was in Mitchell Co. at 1240 pods and the low was also in Mitchell Co. with only 508 pods. Relative to the last 3 days, there were fewer small pods with the potential to be filled. I found many of them in my boots when I took them off. In other words, they were sloughing the few, small late pods that had a chance a few weeks ago.
On the MN side of the border, there was more optimism in our soybean samples. Apparently, the rains had visited those fields in a timely fashion at least in the portions we sampled anyway. Our range in the 3’x3’ went from a high of 1641 in Mower Co. with a low of 837 also in Mower Co. The route average was 1221, not bad all things considered. Soybean maturity was largely later R5 to early R6 in some cases. No guarantees but most of this crop should easily get under the wire when it comes to frost.
For the 18th year, I’d like to thank our sponsors for this year’s Crop Tour and to Brian Grete for allowing me to serve as Tour Consultant for one more year. Again this year, COVID caused some uncertainty. Running the two person crews as we have works, but I do miss the foreign scouts as well as other industry people who were prevented from participating due to protocol. Maybe next year, God willing, and the river don’t rise.
I’d also like to thank Dan Sturgill from Piqua OH for driving on our route and putting up with all my boring stories. The days were long, and we ground through them the best that a dairy farmer and sheep farmer could. Hopefully he gets a chance to put those new concaves to the test this fall with a record harvest.
