Iowa Yield Potential Still Good, but Weather Shaved Off Top End Yield
Iowa Crop 080522
Iowa started off the season with historically high crop ratings but conditions have recently dropped with the recent heat and dryness and that may have taken the top end off yields.
Iowa’s corn rating fell 4% last week to 76% good to excellent, with drought expanding in areas like the southwest where Roger Cerven has had only 3 inches of rain since May 12. Roger Cerven, farms near Stanton in southwest Iowa . He says, "From the 28th of April to the 12th of May we had 12 inches of rain, and really held us up. And I’ve had about 3 inches of rain since. "
He says that combined with the recent heat has cut into his corn yields. “Last year where we had stuff that did 30, 40 bushel over our APH we could start losing, be below that of the APH pretty fast. We may be back to 140, 50 on some farms."
And he says excessive wind this season has also dried out the beans and he’s not very optimistic with the extended forecast looking dry. Cerven says, "We’re really starting to see where the soil types are, that it’s changing pretty fast. Last week saw some beans I would call say do the death roll that they just flip the leaves over, turning silver.”
There are some very good crops though in other parts of the state that could make up for those short areas. But agronomists say the top end corn yield may be slipping away.
Bruce Battles, Syngenta Technical Agronomy Manager, says, "We’re probably not a disaster anywhere in Iowa that I’ve seen and probably on par for average crops. Can we hit an above average year I think is the question right now? And that’s what the next few weeks will really tell us."
And soybean crop conditions in Iowa are better than 2021 at 73% good to excellent, but down from 2% from last week and running out of time.
Battles says, “There are areas that missed quite a few rains throughout the season that are definitely I think at this week for example they’re at that pivot point and if they don’t get a rain probably this week they’re kind of starting to fall off the end of the cliff and yield potential is going to go down dramatically."
However, the crop ratings suggest the crop is better overall than it was a year ago.
