Day 4 from the Data Bunker
And that’s a wrap! The Pro Farmer Crop Tour is complete and after the 4 days, scouts pulled 1,700 corn samples and 1,700 bean samples over the 4 days and we couldn’t be prouder of the performance the scouts pulled off this week. They understand what needs to be done and always come in with a huge number of samples!
Going into today, it was to discover if the Minnesota and eastern Iowa crop could pull the yield up enough to get us to the expected larger crop across the Midwest. But, even with a larger than expected yield, I don’t know if the crop would amount to enough to reach the expectations.
The headline of the week is: just how much does planting date matter? Planting dates were behind 10-20 days in most areas. Even though we’re caught up with GDUs, it means the crop has been rushed and it’s affected grain length in just about every district we toured through.
Minnesota corn was really good, with strong stands. Better than the crop that we found last year by 7.3% and better than the 3-year average by 5.2%. Yield we found today was 190.39 bu./ac. The crop has caught up and right on track compared to average for growth development. Ears were heavy but were missing grain length, just like other states we traveled through. It will have a great opportunity for a slow-cooked finish, as long as the Tar Spot in SE Minnesota doesn’t take the top end yield from the garden spot of the state.
Minnesota beans were about to the ‘sweet spot’ that Brian Grete talked about tonight- when we see 1,150 pods in a 3x3 sq. foot, we’ve got a great crop on our hands. Nodes were just far enough apart with a few too less pods per node to get the crop exactly where we needed it to be, but it was still 7.1% up from last year and 7.3% up from the 3-year average. The average pods per 3x3 were 1100.75. SDS could be the robber of yield in the moisture heavy state as it starts to set in and limit our bean fill period.
Eastern Iowa corn was enough to help the drought stressed western part of the state to get yields exactly to the 3-year average. We saw a yield 3.6% down from last year, at 183.8 bu./acre. The crop was more consistent with more over 200 bu./acre samples than other states. Grain inches were still an issue in the state but they were off-set by the increase in ear count compared to the 3-year average.
The eastern Iowa bean crop is really good with a total pod count in 3x3 at 1,174.43. That’s down 3.6% from last year but up 1.5% from the 3-year average. The beans have potential to be a large crop because of the moisture remaining and progression of the bean-fill period.
Tomorrow afternoon, Pro Farmer will release the numbers with a ‘twist’, taking into consideration outside factors like crop finish, agronomic impacts, and insights from outside the tour area.
Thanks for a great week and can’t wait to do it all over again in a year!