Crop Tour Route Report: Lots of Prevent Plant

Preliminary Route Report from Western Tour Leader Jeff Wilson

What counties have you sampled from?

• South Dakota: Minnehaha (Crop District 6), Lake (6), Miner (6), McCook (6), Hutchinson (9)

Corn yield range:

• 126-254 bu. per acre

Corn yield average:

• 157 bu. per acre

Soybean pod count range (in a 3’x3’ square):

• 342-960 pods

Soybean pod count average (in a 3’x3’ square):

• 656 pods

Route comments:

Clearly, this is one of the hardest-hit areas in terms of farmers having to take prevent plant crop insurance. It was difficult to find a corn and a soybean field together to measure at the same time. Sometimes we had to go down the road to get the other crop because of all the prevent plant areas.

In general, corn and soybean crops are immature, as you would expect given the late plantings, and will need time to reach their full yield potential. Surprisingly, weeds were not a major problem in most fields, except in some PP fields that had not been taken care of.

There is plenty of moisture for crops to fill kernels and fill pods with beans. Both crops just need extra time in which to reach those yield potentials.

Full route reports and analysis of the 2019 Pro Farmer Midwest Crop Tour are available for Pro Farmer subscribers here.