News

More variability on the eastern leg

As the Pro Farmer Midwest Crop Tour made its way into Illinois yesterday Eastern Leg lead and Pro Farmer Market Analyst Brian Grete says scouts saw some a variety of conditions in Eastern Illinois. “There were some good yields that came out of areas and then there were some really poor yields that came out of those areas that have really, really good soils that historically produce really well,” he says.

On his route yesterday, Grete says they made their way through fields that are in typically high yield producing counties.  “We went through Livingston, Ford, McLean, and Champaign counties,” he says.  “We really came up with some disappointing yields in some of those areas – it was a crop that was short and stressed.”

To that end – Grete says there were fields along the northern routes that should yield well.  “There was extreme variability, not only county to county but also field to field and within each field,” he says.  The extreme variability is one of the things Grete says they are seeing a lot of this year.  That, he says, makes pegging precise numbers more difficult this year.

The Pro Farmer Midwest Crop tour will release its Illinois estimates later on this evening.