Harvest going well despite drought

The weather during the growing season was less than favorable for Iowa?s crops this summer. Nevertheless, farmers and agronomists have been surprised by how high some of the yields are in spite of the extreme heat in July.

Iowa State University farm management specialist Jim Jensen works in Henry County and he said the corn has done better than just about everybody expected.

?The corn yield is better than anticipated and the beans look good, too,? he said.

Iowa State University field agronomist Jim Jensen said that, at the end of September, he was hearing corn yields all over the ranch.

?The corn yields are extremely variable, but in general they are better than expected with some fields yielding greater than 200 bushels an acre,? he said. ?There are also fields yielding less than 50 bushels an acre.?

Jensen said that eastern Iowa had harvested a smaller percentage of its crop than the rest of the state, and that the southern part of the state had harvested more than the middle. As of this week, eastern Iowa had harvested about 55 percent of its corn crop and nearly 80 percent of its bean crop.

Jensen said the rest of the state is farther along in harvesting its corn crop. He estimated the state as a whole has harvested 75 percent of the corn crop by now.

This summer?s drought was tough on a lot of fields. Jensen said it was especially harsh on poor soils. Interestingly, quite a few fields handled the drought pretty well. He said corn roots were much deeper this year than in most years, which allowed the roots to survive into August when cooler temperatures and more rainfall arrived.

Jensen has heard mostly good things about the bean yield, too. He said he?s heard yields in the 50 to 60 bushel range.

Corn roots might have been able to weather the drought but quite a few plants were not. Grasses that livestock graze on dried up over the summer, and this hurt livestock producers through high feed prices.

?I would expect prices to be high,? he said. ?Grain prices have dropped some but are still very high.?

Jensen said high grain prices don?t necessarily spell high food prices for humans.

?Most of the food prices are not related to the costs of growing the food,? he said.

Rainfall in southeast Iowa was much higher in August and September compared to July but still below normal. Jensen said the eastern half of Washington County actually got above normal rainfall in September while the western half got below normal amounts.

Since the harvest is earlier than normal this year, Jensen expects farmers will require less artificial corn drying.

?The exception to this would be fields where ear rots are present since these fields should be harvested earlier and dried in the bin to prevent further rot,? he said. ?This does not appear to be a widespread problem.?