News

Uncertainty heading into harvest

Heading into harvest there is concern about this corn and soybean crop will actually yield.

Jack Spalding, district sales manager for Seed Consultants says potential yield loss varies.  “Planting dates were a big issue on how crops responded to wet weather,” he says.  “A warm August and warm September with ample rain should help in some of the crops’ recovery.”

But he says – you can’t recover a crop that isn’t there.  Which is the case for many farmers in the eastern Corn Belt.  “These places where the corn is extremely short and yellow – those are damaged big time,” he says.  “I’m not 100 percent sure what is going to be there.  There are some small ears on some of those plants – very small.”

As for harvest – Spalding says the crop is behind.  “We missed a lot of heat units this summer,” he says.  “So we’ll be harvesting later.”

He says a later harvest will put added pressure on farmers trying to get fall fieldwork done to correct some of the compaction issues brought on by the wet growing season.