Harvest is rolling along in Nebraska with 22% of the corn combined and 29% of the soybeans out of the field. The 2023 growing season in the cornhusker state has been a story of haves and have nots as Michelle Rook found in this week’s I-80 Harvest tour stop.
Early harvest results in Nebraska are variable as you might expect. While many farmers faced their second year of drought, others were lucky enough to pick up some mid-season rains. And that was enough to overcome some of the early season damage and produce some average to even above average yields.
Steve Wellman was hit by drought on his farm in Syracuse, Nebraska in 2022. So surprisingly, this season started off with enough moisture to get the crop off to a good start. “And then June turned really dry, and we were really concerned about the drought.”
In fact, in June drought covered 95% of the state. However, some mid-season moisture may have come just in time to save Wellman’s corn crop.
“This corn that we’re harvesting today 109 Day maturity. It was starting to try to tassel the last week of June. But fortunately, it started raining about that time and we received about 13 inches of rain in July.”
And their harvest results are proving that early drought damage can be overcome by timely rains. Wellman says, “And we see the impact of great yields here now. Much much better than we thought we were going to have when we’re looking at the dry weather in June.”
Corn yields have been averaging around 200 bushels per acre, nearly 25% above his farm’s Average Production History. He attributes some of it to improved genetics and management. Wellman says, “Yield wise looks like we’re going to be above normal yield wise above our ten-year APH for crop insurance and so happy about that at least on corn.”
Corn is running 57 to 58 pounds so the late season heat didn’t hurt test weights and they aren’t seeing field loss. “And right now though the corn standing Well, the ears are hanging on well so really no issues right now.”
However, Wellman thinks the late season heat may have hurt soybean production potential and standability. There’s also been some disease and pest pressure. “I think we lost the top end of the crop during August and September during the heat. It looked like it probably took a few soybeans took a few steps backward yield wise but overall, still optimistic. That’ll be above our ten-year APH yield.”
However, that’s not the case across Nebraska and statewide yields may be below average with drought impacting nearly half the state, accounting for 71% of corn and 80% of soybean acres. The unknown is how much irrigated production will make up for the drought losses.
“Nebraska is pretty diverse across irrigated and non-irrigated. This corn is is not irrigated, but I know some areas have really been short on moisture so it will be variable just like it usually is in the state of Nebraska.”
