The following comments from a Pro Farmer Member from the Blue Earth County, Minnesota provide some food for thought as to the state of the Iowa and Minnesota crops:
I drove from Albert Lea, Minnesota to Des Moines, Iowa on I-35 yesterday [June 5]. I had heard how bad things looked, but I was shocked to see the poor crop conditions for much of the northern part of that trip. We are ending the first week of June, and very few fields looked good. Most of them remained unplanted. Ruts and water spots pock-marked many of the unplanted ones.
It is one thing to see a usually productive area in a drought where yields are reduced, but to see this productive ground with many fields unplanted and likely to yield 0 was sickening. I have heard that southeast Minnesota and northeast Iowa have many spots that look similar.
Our farm is on the northern and western edge of the bad crop area at Mapleton in Blue Earth County. Our corn plants are small, but stands and color are good. Our yield potential is still very good. The fields I saw yesterday have lots of poor stands and a sickly color.
I hope the planted acreage estimates are accurate. The condition of much of the crop that is planted is very suspect in these wet areas. Corn fields with poor stands on June 6 can’t be fixed.
Much of the area that is wet has strong local corn use with feed and ethanol plants using most of the local crop. Many of these counties will be corn deficit this fall, causing strange things to happen to corn basis, again. We feed pigs with feed mills located in this area. We will be thinking about local corn supplies for next summer.”
