Farmers in Nebraska and western Iowa will need more bin space to store the 2009 crop.
That’s the reaction from DTN agronomist Daniel Davidson, one of the participants in this week Pro Farmer Midwest Crop Tour. Davidson says his group stopped in 20 corn fields in western Iowa and estimated yields averaged 188 bushels per acre, with a lot of fields in the 180 to 210 bushel range. And soybean pod counts in western Iowa were 10 to 20 percent above those counted on last year’s tour.
In Nebraska, corn yields were estimated up 12 percent over tour estimates from last year, with a statewide average yield around 159 bushels per acre. Soybean pod counts in Nebraska were up more than nine percent from 2008, a number which Pro Farmer senior editor Roger Bernard called “the monster number for the 2009 tour.”
The crop tour moved into Minnesota Thursday. Tour participant Jerome Lensing, a sales agronomist with Pioneer in southeastern Minnesota, says corn in that area looks like it could average 175 to 180 bushels per acre.
“The growers are very optimistic that they’ve got an average to above-average crop coming,” Lensing says. “One producer this morning told us that he feels, on his corn acres, it’s probably the best he’s seen in the last five years.”
As you go north in Minnesota-north of the Twin Cities and into west-central Wisconsin-crops have been hurt by drought this summer. However, Lensing says recent rains have helped considerably.
“Most of the guys are being optimistic that they’re probably going to get about three-quarters of a (corn) crop,” says Lensing. “Beans? I’ve always said, August rains are what make the bean crop. I’m very optimistic about what the bean crop is going to be simply because we caught the rains here in August.”
A final report on the crop tour findings will be issued on Friday.
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