From The Rows August 22, 2022 - Brent Judish (West)

            Day 1 of the 2022 Pro Farmer Crop Tour is in the books.  Our 10 routes led us today from Sioux Falls SD to Grand Island NE.  Most of the morning was spent in the 20 most southeast counties of South Dakota.  As we finished South Dakota we moved into the Northeast area of Nebraska and worked our way to Grand Island.  Today was a beautiful day for scouting.  It was a cool damp morning, and the afternoon was very pleasant for a mid August day.                                                   In South Dakota we scouted crop districts 5, 6, and 9. The routes that went West of Sioux Falls in crop district 6 towards Mitchell saw very good corn and soybean samples as they moved west.  The routes that headed south of Sioux Falls towards Yankton in crop district 9 were extremely disappointing.  Dry conditions starting before pollination and continuing thru the end of pollination were evident in the corn samples we pulled.   The samples we pulled continually struggled with low ear counts, some as low as 10 viable ears in our 30 ft samples, when 40 to 50 are normal ear counts.  Most of the ears we did pull showed pollination issues from both ends of the ear as well as pollination issues on the bottom side of the ears.                              The soybeans in crop district 9 show similar stress as the corn did, but still had respectable pod counts.  Rains are needed soon for these soybeans if they are going to maintain the pods they have and fill them out.  We saw many instances of pods already being aborted and the soybeans currently in the pods were flat.                                                                                                  As we moved into Nebraska crop districts 2, 3, 5, and 6 we saw similar drought conditions that we had experienced in the southern area of South Dakota.  Our corn samples showed poor pollination as well as low ear counts.   As we experienced more Irrigated fields the sampled yields did get better, but were still less than we normally see in these field samples.  The hotter temperatures we experienced this Summer, especially during the month of July, have definitely put extra stress on both the corn and soybeans under Irrigation.  We saw pivots running on our whole route today trying to protect the yields of these soybeans.                                        Even though our samples proved to be disappointing today, we still saw a lot of potential in many of the fields we sampled, especially in the soybeans.  Let’s hope these areas can receive some decent rain soon.                                                                                                     The important thing is we left with 15 scout vehicles this morning and everyone made it safely to Grand Island!!