From The Rows | Aug. 23, 2022 — Brian Grete (East)
My route took me north a little and west out of Noblesville, Indiana, through crop districts 5 and 4 through central and west-central areas of the state. There was light fog and heavy dew on crops through mid-morning.
In 10 stops in Indiana, my route had an average corn yield of 183.1 bu., with a range of 124.7 bu. to 244.7 bu. per acre. Ear counts in two 30 foot rows were consistent, ranging from 98 to 119. Aside from the lowest tally, which had skips in the rows, the rest were very consistent. Average grain length ranged from 5 inches to 8.1 inches.
Pod counts in 3’x3’ square along my route averaged 1103.7. The range on our 10 samples was wide, from 408 to 2447.2 The soybeans we sampled were relatively clean and disease free, though more variable than the corn along our route. We did notice the color was changing on several soybean fields along our route, though none of those were in our samples.
While recent rains improved topsoil moisture along our route, there were signs of moisture stress earlier in the summer – tipback on virtually all the corn samples we pulled and a lack of pods on some of the soybean samples.
Final Day 2 observations
If there’s going to be a factor that holds back the Indiana corn crop, it’s going to be grain length. It got too hot and dry, causing the ears to abort the end kernels. The corn crop now must try to hold onto the yield potential we measured.
Soybeans could still get a boost from late-season rains. Some of the fields were still flowering, which means late-season rains could add pods. For the majority of the acres that are done flowering, it’s now a matter of how many pods plants can sustain and how plump the beans within those pods become.
The Crop Tour average corn yield of 177.85 bu. per acre for Indiana was down 6.0% from last year. USDA’s Aug. 1 corn yield was down 3.1% from last year. This year’s Tour yield was down 0.2% versus our three-year average.
The average pod count in a 3’x3’ square totaled 1165.95, down 6.0% from what we found last year on Crop Tour. Less pods doesn’t necessarily mean a lower yield. It just means there are fewer pods in the yield factory. It’s now up to Mother Nature whether there’s enough late-season moisture to allow all of the pods to plump up. Pod counts in the state were up 1.5% from the three-year Tour average.
Through the first two days, the story from the eastern leg of Crop Tour has been corn grain length and the lack of consistency with this year’s crops. Lost grain length from the hot, dry periods earlier this summer is going to keep the Indiana and Ohio corn crops from living up to last year’s standard. Soybean pod counts are down, but with the right late-season weather, there’s still enough “factory” there to produce strong yields, though maybe not the record yields USDA forecast as of Aug. 1.
