The 2022 Pro Farmer Crop Tour has come to an end. It’s a week I look forward to every year once we get our own crops planted. The week just goes by so fast because of the schedule we keep for the week. Sunday night when we gather is always a great time, as many of us are here year after year. Some of us keep in contact throughout the whole year also, so it is fun to have us all together for 5 days once a year. And now we sit here on Thursday night with another great week behind us.
On day 4 we drove up into Minnesota and begin sampling as we work our way North and East finishing our day in Rochester. Today we covered Crop Districts 4,5,7,8, and 9. Today was the only day this week we saw what we were hoping for. The corn and soybeans looked good right from the start. Our early corn samples were right around 200 BPA. As we moved East from Martin county towards Blue Earth county we did run into some Green snap and lodging issues. We had 6 samples with some kind of wind damage. Those samples brought our average for the day down a little, but overall I was impressed with the corn samples we pulled. The crop seemed to be moving along maturity wise, as most of the ears we pulled were in some stage of denting. Our average for the day on 24 stops was 186 BPA, with a high of 236.6 and a low of 148.4. With the wind damaged areas out of the sample we were over 190 bpa for the day.
Our soybean samples for the day were similar to our expectations as well. The only difference was we had a little less consistency in our Pod counts. We saw a field with some strong aphid pressure, but it seemed to be an isolated field and we didn’t notice any the rest of the day our Soybean pod count in a 3x3 square averaged 1073 for the day, with a high of 1479.9 and a low of 630. Overall I look for Minnesota to have a pretty normal soybean crop. We had mud on our shoes in all but 2 of our samples today, moisture this late into August usually makes for a strong finish for the soybean crop.
I need to send thanks out to the tour sponsors. Your support allows us to do what we do every year the third week of August. The interest in the tour seems to grow every year, and your backing allows this to happen.
And finally, a huge thanks to the scouts that were on tour this year. Your dedication to this undertaking is incredible. The early mornings and late nights while being Volunteers make this all possible. It’s a thankless job you all do, but obviously that’s not why you come in the first place. Bringing people from all over the world and all over the US that have a common interest in production agriculture is so unique. Friendships are made and the sharing of information between you keeps many of you coming back year after year.