News

Indiana crops receive much-needed precipitation

Cooler temperatures and above-average precipitation helped alleviate some stress on Indiana crops and pastures last week.  But, crop progress continues well behind last year’s pace.

According to the latest crop report just 33 percent of the state’s corn crop is rated good to excellent with just 1 percent of the crop mature, 26 percent dented, 70 percent in the dough stage, and 97 percent silking.

Southeast Indiana farmer Ben Kron says there are some garden spots in his fields.  “I could see us on the yield monitors seeing some of the highest numbers we’ve ever seen,” he says.  “But when that average with a zero your average yield drops very quickly.”

Soybeans are also rated 33 percent good to excellent with 76 percent setting pods and 93 percent are blooming.

He tells Brownfield they could start cutting beans as early as next week.  “We were able to get a few beans planted in early to mid-April,” he says.  “The earlier beans look really good.  We also had a lot of beans get planted in very late June.  So our farm-average is going to be drug down a lot with those.  We’ll be lucky to pull 30 bushels on those – and maybe break even.”

Kron says they need a late frost for many of their corn and soybean acres to hit maturity.