Most Corn, Beans Doing Well

The U-S-D-A crop report issued Monday showed drier conditions allowed farmers to get more work done in the fields last week.

The report says there were four-point-two (4.2) days suitable for fieldwork — the first time since mid-June that farmers have had over three suitable days across the whole state to work in the field. Some of that field work included replanting drowned out crops, or adding nitrogen to areas that saw it washed out. Parts of northwest Iowa had more than 20 inches of rain in recent weeks. Iowa State University Agronomist, Paul Kassel, says that continues to create water problems.
He says the water doesn’t drain away and that impacts the corn.  He says in some cases farmers are trying to rescue some of their nitrogen-starved corn crop.

Kassel says the worst areas in northwest Iowa are in Buena Vista, Clay, Palo Alto and Pocahontas Counties. Overall, the crop report says 76-percent of the corn crop was reported in good to excellent condition, unchanged from the previous week. Seventy-three percent of the soybean crop was rated in good to excellent condition, unchanged from last week.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Agriculture says Illinois’ latest crop of corn and soybeans is shaping up.

The USDA says in its weekly crop-status update that 81 percent of the state’s corn is rated as either good or excellent.

That’s just slightly better than the condition of Illinois soybeans. The USDA considers three-quarters of that crop to be in good or excellent shape.

Some 90 percent of the state’s wheat harvest is now complete, in line with the average pace of the previous five years.