AgWeb Crop Comments

Use this link to send us your comments (or e-mail CropComments@agweb.com) about the crops in your local area. Be sure to send us your photos and videos! Comments will be edited for brevity and clarity. (Please keep your comments crop-related.) 

• 6/19 - Stearns County, Minn.: Corn looking better by the day with the warmer temps, but soybeans look horrible. There are virtually no soybeans that look good anywhere in MN that I have seen. Whoever is reporting these crop conditions to USDA at a local level should lay off the whiskey and get out and actually look at the crops countywide. I can't believe soybean prices are not skyrocketing!!
  
   
• 6/19 - Freeborn County, Minn.: Still trying to get soybeans in. Will give full report in a few days. Things DON'T look good. Too much mud!
  
   
• 6/19 - Palo Alto County, Iowa: Still haven't planted a bean or replanted corn. What beans are being put in are getting spread on with a floater and being worked in with a field cultivator, but with mud balls the size of basketballs and getting stuck several times a day, it's not worth it. Nneighbors had to get an excavator to get their big track tractor out today. Hope some guys will have a bean crop this year 'cause in our area there won't be one. Never seen such a mess.
  
   
• 6/19 - East Central Iowa: It is kind of hard for me to read what a lot of you are going through when things look like they do here. Don't get me wrong, not every field looks good to excellent, but we are doing a lot better than most. For comparison, went by the local golf course and seen the sprinklers running at dusk. Like I stated earlier, in 10-14 days we may be praying for rain! Corn has gone through it's "ugly stage" as I call it. Last week some of the corn was hitting the nitrogen zone and some wasn't. Second-pass corn is in full swing as is first-crop hay. Last week we were supposed to get 2-4" of rain, received less that, 2/10's, while others got the 2-4". Like some of you guys have said, think about those who are not as fortunate. Picture is of 15" corn planted May 1st. We also have 30" corn planted May 17th.
  
   

-- East Central Iowa

• 6/19 - Whiteside County, Ill.: I may be having flashbacks. Are those pictures from the late '70s?
   
• 6/19 - Johnson County, Iowa: Had to replant some beans. Sidedressing all done. Corn sprayed and started spraying beans. Some corn is knee high. Things look good right now.
  
   
• 6/19 - Rush County, Ind.: Started planting corn May 4th and soybeans on 5th. Finished on the 15th with both crops; almost scary compared to last year. Near perfect growing conditions. We are a little behind on moisture, but with temps running behind its OK. Early corn is waist-high and 15-inch beans will be closing the rows. So far so GOOD!
  
   
• 6/19 - Dallas County, Iowa: My blood boils when I read recent analysts' articles saying the weather premium has been priced into the market or that we are are "overpriced." What are they smoking?? USDA says that for all practical purposes we are 100% planted in corn. Combine that with the 6/16 CBS News program that reported that Iowa's corn is rated (Iowa is the USA's leading corn producer) as 4% VERY POOR, 12% POOR, 11% NOT EMERGED (may not) and 6% PREVENTED PLANTING. Add that up and that tells me that 33% of Iowa's corn acres will produce little or no corn. And we are not alone. Many surrounding states are suffering as well. I know there are parts of the country that will have average crop production and even good yields, but tell me, what miracle will have to happen to produce a record or even average crop nationally? Sun and 80-degree days into December? Not going to happen! Our soybeans are in worse shape yet, with many more PP acres. Users - you had better lock in bushels while you can, because we will be a tad bit short come fall. Nuff said. My blood pressure is rising as I look across the drowned out fields!
  
   
• 6/19 - Grant County, Wis.: How can they say we're 100% planted? My neighbor has 100 acres of corn to plant yet. Another friend has about 50 left to go plus a lot of beans need to go in yet.
   

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• 6/18 - Northeast Oklahoma: I drove up to Minnesota through Missouri and Iowa this weekend. I went up through central Iowa and back down the west side. The corn was way behind all the way up. The size of the drowned out spots were huge. So much corn under 6 inches tall. The corn just south of the Minnesota line the just emerged this week will have to have a real late frost date to think of making. The soybeans or the lack of is the real story. From Fort Dodge north there were areas I would drive for miles and see all the soybean fields bare. The unplanted fields started north of Joplin Missouri and continued for 700 miles north. Every field had water standing on it. The only field work I encountered was some corn spraying in western Minnesota. So USDA if you really don't know what's going on stop posting false numbers.  I saw close to 100,000 flooded, unplanted or drowned out acres from my pickup window. 

• 6/18 - Perry County, Pa.: Corn planted first week of May, now knee high and looking good. Due to rain, beans in first week of June, all emerged. First hay just being made and very old!! Need rain every week in Pa too get a crop, had too much in May and June!!

• 6/18 - Clark County, Wis.: Fields are very wet in central Wisconsin. Many dairy farmers have 0 to 25% of their crops in the ground. Many farmers are running out of feed and forced to green chop, hay field are too wet to harvest unless you want to wreck the field.
  

• 6/18 - Northeast North Dakota: Planting is pretty much finished here with lots of acres not planted. I have hard time putting estimate on planted acreage but my guess would be around 60 percent because go from area to area where some areas have high percentage and others very little planted. Also vast majority of the crop has been planted in the last week so this crop is way behind. The earlier planted crop is lagging from the wet cold spring. Corn planted in my area is real small and if we don't get some heat in future this crop. Isn't going to make it. I also think wheat has taken big hit on acreage with large pp percentage and soybeans and canola gaining acreage from wheat. I think market is for big surprise on number of pp acres and how that's going effect final acres and production. Also a lot of late crop that's going effect production on lower yields. (Read more wheat-related comments at AgWeb's www.VirtualWheatTour.com) 

• 6/18 - Caldwell County, Mo.: The bottoms may never get planted if it doesn’t dry soon. Corn has several yellow spots beans are finally getting going. The pictures show friends helping each other.
  

  -- Caldwell County, Mo. (Have any photos of the crops on your farm? E-mail (CropComments@agweb.com) them to AgWeb and have them posted on Crop Comments! Be sure to include a caption.)

• 6/18 - Juneau County, Wis.:  We had over 18 inches of rain since April. Our corn that’s in, looks tough, with yellow drowned out and lacking nitrogen. Very few beans planted in our region, the last corn or beans planted between storms is small or hasn't come up yet, or under water, probably take PP on beans ,if it stopped raining now it would take two weeks to maybe get in fields, and rain forecast for Friday and Saturday. Never thought I couldn't get at least half a crop of beans on our land but this year might not get any. Pray for the dairy farmers and neighbors who haven't got anything planted yet. God Bless.

• 6/18 - Buffalo County, Neb.: I worked like a bull's tail during fly season to get all my corn planted before the May 1st blizzard. It took 4 long days and it all came up. Got 5.20" early June and not a drop since. The poor aquifer is going to get a workout again this year. Corn and beans do look beautiful as they do every year. Only problem is herbicide carryover. Any overlap or over application from last season sprouted but is now dead. I don't have an agronomist (or would ever think of paying one) but they say the pukey looking corn is due to the damp cold spring. Residual damage will ding the crops and I'd guess 20% of corn fields have problems.

• 6/18 - Southern Knox County, Ill.: Imagine a world where the USDA released the actual county and state "field data" that was collected, compiled and analyzed to create a crop report.  Do they already do this or am I just missing something? Why wouldn't the USDA want to provide that field data to us? After all, the USDA maintains that their county field data accurately reflects the local situation on the ground and so, why shouldn't we, as producers, be able to confirm what USDA is saying by comparing their county numbers to what we're seeing with our own eyes. And what if we found out that the USDA numbers were right? Well, that would be great, wouldn't it? Finally, something we could trust because we could verify. Instead, what we currently have is a crop reporting system we don't trust because we can't see the raw data that was used to create the crop reports. This is called transparency, folks, and it's long overdue. Because crop reports affect people’s lives, the county and state field data should be made public at the same time as the crop report that was derived from the field data. We need a more transparent crop reporting system.

• 6/18 - South central Nebraska: The temps are rising, and it’s getting very dry. The center pivots will soon be running nonstop. With that said, the crop looks great could be another year of record yields.

• 6/18 - Rapides Parish, La.: All our corn past roasting ear stage. Milo about 75% headed, soybeans all up. Started spraying middles in beans. Some narrow row beans have herbicide damage. A little too much Valor, I think. Starting to come out of it. Overall, crops in this area look pretty good. Be safe and Good Luck this year!

• 6/18 - Kossuth County, Iowa: I will start planting beans in 2 days?

• 6/18 - Somerset County, Pa.: All corn is emerged most is planted. Ours was planted 5/14/13 got 1 1/2 inches of rain the last week. We are v6 right now. We’ve had warm sunny days and cooler nights. Soybeans are up too, and looking good to average in most places. Most places in this county the last 2 weeks no-till has been looking the best.
  

  -- Somerset County, Pa. (Have any photos of the crops on your farm? E-mail (CropComments@agweb.com) them to AgWeb and have them posted on Crop Comments! Be sure to include a caption.)

• 6/18 - Hancock County, Iowa: Finally cutting our first cutting of hay today. Just have not had enough sunny, dry days in a row to cut it. We got all corn & bean planted. Corn looks good, lots of unplanted wet spots in beans. There are a lot of acres of beans not planted in our area and some corn too. Thank you God for some sun this week!
  

• 6/18 - Catawba, N.C.: Corn is up and looks great. We planted into Cover crops this year and you can tell it. looking for 150bu to 175bu with continued rains. Beans are at 2nd trifoliolate and looking great. Hope everyone has a better year then last and can pay the bills.
  

  -- Catawba, N.C. (Have any photos of the crops on your farm? E-mail (CropComments@agweb.com) them to AgWeb and have them posted on Crop Comments! Be sure to include a caption.)

• 6/18 - Dunn, Wis.: We got done but only because of no till planting. There are a lot of farmers that have not even started corn yet.

• 6/18 -Wilbarger County, Texas: 2600 acres of HRW averaged 12 bu. I was one of the highest in the county. (Read more wheat-related comments at AgWeb's www.VirtualWheatTour.com) 

• 6/18 - Gratiot County, Mich.: Corn and beans are finally finished. Most of our crops were planted timely but the last 130 acres of beans were completed 6/9. Corn is finally started to return to a normal color after the cold temps and excessive rains. Otherwise while a wet spring things are returning to normal in our area. Lots of replanting of Sugar Beets, Corn and Soybeans that took place in the last week - we were fortunate that we did not have to do any replanting. Here's to a normal rest of the summer - whatever that may be.
  

  -- Gratiot County, Mich. (Have any photos of the crops on your farm? E-mail (CropComments@agweb.com) them to AgWeb and have them posted on Crop Comments! Be sure to include a caption.)

• 6/17 - Lenawee County, Mich.: Corn and beans look good. Think wheat looks really good, hope so price keep going down. always something to gripe about. (Read more wheat-related comments at AgWeb's www.VirtualWheatTour.com) 

• 6/17 - Lucas County, Iowa: Our Crop Insurance agent says an unprecedented amount of prevented planting claims being filed for both corn and soybeans in south central Iowa, with many more to come. If only 50% of the bean acres get seeded, how can the USDA call it 100% planted! AND they will - and the CBOT will send prices down.

• 6/17 - Southern Knox County, Ill.: A powerful storm with long duration high winds speeds and strong gusts moved through almost 5,000 square miles of western Illinois on Saturday night, June 14th.  The wind knocked my rain gauge over, but when I picked it up, there was still 2" of water inside it.  The corn got pushed over and some of it was knocked down.  Being only a foot tall or less, in most cases, the corn will recover, but it's hard to believe that it didn't have some negative effect. Almost all the beans have been planted for the first time...lots of replanting though, more than the seed dealers can ever recall.  Drowned out spots in the corn even got patched up before June 14th monsoon...but now, there's more water in the wet holes than I've seen for the last three weeks.  So...just how the well seed germinates and grows under water in super-saturated soil conditions during an up-coming stretch of hot sunny days, well, we're gonna find out.

• 6/17 - San Diego, Calf.: If these wet, cool conditions in the Corn Belt (combined with late planting) are followed by hot dry conditions as the high pressure moves east, last year's high prices will look like the good old days! Could easily make record highs.

• 6/17 - Lafayette County, Wis.: We have received some rains since planting, but conditions are dry, corn on sandy nobs yellowing, beans on lighter clay loam are curling, seems rain storms are splitting and going north and south of us as they did in 2012. I took a drive to Mo. to look at a tractor, IA, IL and MO did not impress me crop wise, small yellow corn, small beans, very, very wet.

• 6/17 - Le Sueur, Minn.: All depends on where you live and farm. Most of the county seems to be in fair shape. Need warmth and a chance to finish spraying. Hoping for the best.

• 6/17 - Boone County, Iowa: Drove approx 150 miles from Fort Dodge, Iowa south, on Wed 6/12. Virtually nothing looks like it has the potential to produce anything near an average yield. Thousands of wet unplanted acres of beans and it rained even more on the 13th & 14th. 30 miles west of Ames, prime ag land, they got 7-9 inches of rain on Fri the 14th. Even if beans were to get planted in the next 10 days (which they won't)what chance do they have of making anywhere close to an average yield? I'll bet the farm, Iowa SB yield will be between 20 and 30 bu with an average around 25-26 - for the State of Iowa. And what about all the PP acres? USDA may continue to play games with the numbers, albeit with the help of analysts, professors and other "experts". But eventually this distortion will come home to roost. End users - you had better buy every bushel of corn and beans that you can - while you can. I just hope I have grain to sell.

• 6/17 - Iowa County, Iowa: Corn and soybean planting done for the most part, only exception would be river bottoms. Early planted corn and soybeans look good. Corn and soybeans planted May 16th - 18th was slow emerging with reduced stand and population. Side hills, flat areas, are short yellow and poor stands. My opinion we will need a full growing season for this crop to reach maturity we are just slow growing this year. If our growing season ends anything earlier than average we could have a crop disaster. To cold and to wet crop is all small we will be lucky to have corn knee high by the 4th of July, pollination will be in August, and this does not make for trend line yields.

• 6/17 - Caldwell County, Mo.: Picture was taken on June 13 as we wait for the seed tender. We got rained out Friday and have about 300 acres left.
  

  -- Caldwell County, Mo. (Have any photos of the crops on your farm? E-mail (CropComments@agweb.com) them to AgWeb and have them posted on Crop Comments! Be sure to include a caption.)

• 6/17 - Fulton County, Ill.: We have a lot of drowned out crops that will have to be replanted at reduced yields. And more switched to soybeans.

• 6/17 - Brown County, S.D.: Corn and beans 100% planted. Dry early and much needed rain last 2 weeks. Area looks as good as I’ve seen in 40 years of farming

• 6/17 - Craigmont, (Lewis County), Idaho: We grow soft white wheat and garbanzos. (Read more wheat-related comments at AgWeb's www.VirtualWheatTour.com)