Yield

With contributing factors ranging from insect pressure to disease and environmental stressors this season, agronomists say farmers face hard decisions on when to combine their crop in affected fields.

There are no easy answers to address the cost of fertilizer and other inputs, but having conversations with suppliers and financial providers now can help you leverage your buying power and minimize potential impacts from marketplace uncertainties.

It’s a head-scratcher situation: some Illinois farmers are reporting moisture levels in their corn are dropping only one point per week.

While application season is still weeks away, retailers and other suppliers are encouraging farmers to reserve product now.

The challenge of harvesting high moisture and high disease pressure corn is not one that all farmers have faced in their lifetimes. Here’s some quick pointers to keep in mind as you tackle a tough crop to harvest and store.

Allison Thompson with The Money Farm says corn rallied on Tuesday as the market does not believe USDA’s 186.7 bu. per acre yield estimate especially with some disappointing early yield reports.

The crop took it on the chin this season, with some Iowa farmers reporting huge yield losses as harvest gets underway. A one-time fungicide application helped, but it wasn’t enough to buck severe disease pressure, allowing it to return.

Jon Scheve with Scheve Grain says corn and soybeans were seeing a technical bounce Tuesday with corn getting some extra help from early yield reports which are showing lower production than a year ago due to disease pressure, especially Southern Rust.

Agronomic specialists are encouraging farmers to make their corn harvest plans now, prioritizing which fields to combine first and so forth. Evaluating how well the crop is standing on a field by field basis can help you plan the process and minimize having to pick up down corn.

A prematurely collapsing ear shank stops grain fill, leading to yield reductions that can reach as high as 40%.