Normally when we go though a day and sample as many dented cornfields as we saw over the past day-and-a-half in Nebraska, I’d say, “We measured yield.” This year – it’s still potential. Diseases – and mostly southern rust – is threatening to take the shine off a pretty glitzy corn crop in the state.
We also found Soybeans are also threatened by a strange concoction of yield robbers. Brown Stem Rot, Red Crown Rot, SDS and White Mold were mentioned at the meeting tonight, but Brown Stem Rot seems to be the disease of the day. It was on my route. One of the reasons we count pods is to get scouts to open the canopy and take a look at what’s under the green carpet of a bean field. In most of my bean stops today, I’d open the canopy and find some scattered dead plants. My last stop of the day included three dead plants in three foot of row. That was in 30-inch rows with 17 viable plants. From the original 20 plants in that plot, 15% were dead. And several of the remaining 17 plants had exceptionally brittle stems.
The bean crop is carrying tremendous potential. We found an average of 1,348.31 pods in a 3’X3’ square – 15% more than last year’s tour and 19.1% ahead of the three-year-average. Moisture was rated at 4.56 (1-6 scale; 1 bone dry, 6 standing water in depressions) – better than last year’s 4.31 but well below South Dakota’s 5.53.
Great potential for the beans means great risk of a disappointing finish because of disease issues. One other pest that is gaining importance is gall midge. Learn more about the relatively new pest here:
https://crops.extension.iastate.edu/encyclopedia/soybean-gall-midge
The corn crop isn’t bug-free, either. Some scouts reported finding Western Bean Cutworm. We didn’t find that worm on our route today, but we did see earworm and stink bug damage.
But the issue that leaves many growers with a sinking feeling about their corn crop is southern rust. Some growers are considering immediate efforts to stop the spread with another fungicide application. Others are convinced southern rust has done the damage it will do by – in part – speeding development of the crop. Most samples on crop tour today were in the dent stage and in some fields the milk line was clearly visible one-quarter to one-third down the kernel. That’s a crop that seems to be moving too quickly to maturity to maximize kernel fill. Smaller/lighter kernels could be the result.
But as of right now – the Crop Tour’s snapshot of the Nebraska corn crop shows very good yield potential. The average calculated yield was 179.5 bushels per acre, up 3.61% from last year. USDA’s August 1 estimate is up 2.1% from USDA’s 2024 final yield estimate for Nebraska, so we’re basically seeing the same crop compared to year-ago. That yield was built with an average grain length of 7.34 inches, up 4.4% from last year. The average number of kernel rows around the ear was 16.24, down 1.28% from last year.
There is a difference between irrigated corn and dryland corn this year, but we speculate it’s not because of irrigation but because fields were prepped to be irrigated. Nutrient programs were more robust and populations were heavier in fields that were intended to be irrigated. That means the rain-only-fed fields performed better than dryland fields that were planted with the intention of drought management.
And the dryland fields are performing well. Several scouts made the comment that it looks like the Nebraska average yield is being pushed up from the bottom rather than pulled up from the top. Top-end yields are good, but not fantastic. Low-end yields are good with very few poor yields to report.
That wraps up our Nebraska portion of the 2025 Pro Farmer Crop Tour. We had two fun meetings in the state – Monday night in Grand Island and Tuesday night in Nebraska City. Wednesday we make our way up the western crop districts in Iowa – we’ll have observations for you from Spencer.