Finally Got Rain, Now They Can’t Turn It Off

For Scott Burger, this growing season feels like a race he can’t win. Each time his fields get dry enough to sidedress nitrogen or spray with herbicides, another band of rain rolls through.

Overnight, on Tuesday, it happened again.

Burger, who farms in northeast Iowa, says his fields caught between 2” and 2.5” of rain in just a few hours — dumped on top of already saturated soils. The storms “rolled in again about 5 o’clock and are kind of sputtering,” he notes, adding that he figures his area has already logged rainfall in “that four- to five-inch range” for this month alone.

The frequent rains are turning his usual mid-June workload into a logistical grind.

“We’re dodging rains to get sidedressing done, to get our crops sprayed,” Burger says. “That’s created a real challenge.”

Wet Fields, Narrow Windows

Burger is far from alone. The sheer volume of rain, paired with extreme winds, has created some intense, localized problems across the wider Corn Belt.

Parts of Iowa, Illinois, Indiana and Missouri have taken the brunt of recent frontal systems and severe thunderstorms. Weekly totals have frequently hit 2” to 4” of rain, with isolated spots tracking higher. Portions of Illinois and Indiana have reported rain totals 4” to 5” above normal for mid-June.

That moisture has come with a price in some areas of Iowa. Farmers there have reported high winds that caused lodging. While younger corn (V4 to V10) often goosenecks and stands back up within a few days with minimal yield loss, some of the older or faster-growing corn suffered from greensnap, resulting in a total loss of those plants. Meanwhile, in low-lying areas, heavy downpours have caused standing water, creating saturated soils that restrict root oxygen and cause critical nitrogen to leach below the root zone.

Despite the regional rainstorms and wind, Monday’s USDA Crop Progress Report was a positive overall, saying 100% of the corn crop is planted, with 94% emerged and 68% rated good-to-excellent. Soybean farmers are also nearing the finish line, with planting at 95% complete — pacing just ahead of the five-year average.

A Tale of Two Crops

At this point, Burger says his primary struggle is timing post-herbicide applications for good weed control, especially in his corn. Soft ground and ongoing rain make the applications hard to execute. While Burger managed to get across his acres once, lingering wetness and rapid weed flushes are now forcing him into making rescue treatments.

“It’s another year of something different to fight,” he says.

Burger says the contrast between his corn and soybeans this year is obvious.

“My bean fields are beautiful, clean as a whistle,” he says, noting only “a few escapes around waterways.”

Hundreds of miles away, Kansas wheat grower Ron Suppes says this season has also been marked by moisture extremes, swinging from parched to punishing over the past couple of weeks.

“We waited all year for moisture, and then a couple of weeks ago we got it all at once,” says Suppes, who is based in west-central Kansas.

“We had part of our sorghum planted and all of the wheat to harvest, and got between 5” and 7” inches of rain. It did some damage to the sorghum, and we had several fields that were hailed pretty badly.”

Crusting, Replanting and Patience

Suppes says he has had to deal with water ponding in some of his grain sorghum fields that resulted in a second round of planting. He also is concerned the crusting in some fields is suppressing crop emergence.

“We usually don’t have that with no-till, but the water moved a lot of the cover around on those fields, so we may have spots out there,” he notes.

Burger reports the heavy rains also crusted soil surfaces of the early-planted corn in his area, forcing some of his neighbors back to their planter more than once.

“The guys that had good conditions early — I’ll call it middle of April — they definitely had some crusting,” he says.

He describes one area where he was just getting started on his first planting pass while the neighbors were already replanting failed stands a second time. That experience reinforces a lesson many Midwest growers learn and relearn under volatile spring weather conditions: “Sometimes being patient and waiting [to plant] is the hardest thing to do,” Berger says. “But it turns out to be one of the better things.”

Drowned-Out Spots and Tile Lines

As June wears on, the critical question for many farmers is shifting from how well their crops will emerge to how much of them will survive.

The relentless rains in Burger’s area are expected to leave a lasting mark in fields, written in uneven emergence and thin stands.

“You’re going to see who has invested in more tile drainage over the last five years than you have,” Burger quips, highlighting the stark contrast between well-drained fields and those still fighting water.

Standing water, stunted root development, and heavily stressed plants threaten to drag down whole-field averages, forcing some growers to recalibrate their yield expectations.

For Burger, one major bright spot in a challenging season so far was the decision to lock in his key inputs ahead of time, including a robust fungicide plan. That early move now provides a vital financial buffer, potentially softening the results from uneven corn stands that will likely eat into this year’s margins.

You can hear more of Burger and Suppes’ crop updates and weather outlook on AgriTalk with Host Chip Flory at the link below: