Looks to me as if multiple rain events have moved acress the northern corn belt
S Dok would welcome this rain as some were getting dry
But IA tell us they have the popential for an excellent crop
I see multiple red and orange bands moving across IA
I wonder what amounts they have received and if this rain is good for their crop
I nm not in IA so I don't know
IA and ILl are the usual high yielding places
Northern Ill has had too much rain as it seems a circular band around Chicago on into Mich has had too much rain
Is IA still excellent on most of the crop. Maybe the rain was just what they wanted??
If so, then the western corn belt and IA [if things go well] could surprise us with more than expected total production. We got a surprise on acres but I question those numbers
Rain makes grain and there is lots of irrigation in the western corn belt [if needed]
Much has been made of the wet ECB but this may be off set by excellent crops else where
Backtyarditis can bite you hard
On our farm some of the corn is racing to maturity
The 1st frost date wil decide our fate, on as much as 1/2 our crop
Otherwise our crop is excellent on all farms
Even a larger than normal part of Iowa’s crop was put in the ground late. Sure, the farmers that got their crop in the ground will have a great crop. The 20%-30% that got their crop in the ground a month late? You tell us?
This wonderful article was written on June 13th 2013(a previous wet year for Illinois)
https://www.agweb.com/mobile/article/how_late_is_too_late_for_corn_and_soybean_planting/
It’s very late to plant or to replant corn, and for many with unplanted fields or with poor stands that may need to be replanted, the choice is whether it makes sense to plant corn this late, and if not, whether the best option is prevented-planting insurance or replacement with soybeans, as crop insurance provisions allow.
Table 2.3 in Chapter 2 of the Illinois Agronomy Handbook http://extension.cropsci.illinois.edu/handbook/ indicates that we can expect a corn crop to yield about two-thirds of its expected (early-planted) maximum yield if the crop is planted on June 8 and has a full stand. That is a projection, since most of our corn planting date studies include planting only through the end of May. Based on this, however, we have projected that corn reaches the point where we can expect 50 percent of maximum yield if it is planted sometime between June 15 and June 20.
I reanalyzed our more recent planting date data, and if – this is a big "if" – we can accept projections of yield that go well past the last planting date, we would move the planting date from which we’d expect half a crop a little later, closer to the end of June. But we know that corn planted during or after the middle of June will produce fair to good yields in some years and very little yield in other years, depending on unpredictable weather that follows. Hence it makes sense to consider June 15 to 20 to be that last "practical" date on which to plant corn if we want to produce grain.
If we do plant corn in mid- to late June, planting a very early hybrid, having the option of harvesting the crop as silage if grain production looks unlikely, and getting good rainfall throughout the rest of the season will all improve the chances of ending up with a profitable crop. The chances of having enough frost-free days to grow a crop are higher in central and southern Illinois than farther north, but higher water loss rates and lower water-holding capacity of soils can cancel this advantage. It may also be difficult to get seed of very early hybrids, and because early hybrids are not developed for the central and southern Corn Belt, there is no guarantee that they will do well under late planting.
If it’s too late to plant corn and we don’t expect enough yield to make a profit (or at least to make more than crop insurance would pay to plant nothing), does it make sense to plant soybeans instead? We have run our soybean planting date studies into the first or second week of June, but we still have to project expected yields past the last date we actually planted.
Going through the same exercise as we did for corn, we would expect soybeans planted at the end of June or early in July to yield half what they would if planted early. This is about two weeks later than the normal doublecrop planting date in southern Illinois. Doublecrop soybeans have averaged 72 percent of full-season soybean yields over the past 10 years at Brownstown, so using early July as the 50-percent-of-maximum-yield planting date seems reasonable.
We know that doublecrop (or very late-planted) soybean yields can range from zero to good, and there’s no way to predict when they are planted which end of this range they’ll be on. As many found out in 2012, planting into bone-dry soils is not usually conducive to high doublecrop soybean yields. And in northern and central Illinois, doublecrop soybeans or soybean planted (or replanted) in late June or early July have had a considerably lower rate of success than doublecrop soybeans in southern Illinois.
More on this discussion here:
The BEST fields around me are knee high....if you get out and stand next to the plant and pull an leaf up as far as it will go. Again....that's the BEST fields. Ohio is going to have a horrendous crop this year.
Canadians might know better about what is going on in Iowa, but based on all the statistical data clumping Iowa, Indiana, Illinois and Ohio together, I would venture to guess it's not much better in their states either. Nothing I see would make me short corn.
But the beauty of this web site now is, if someone has something different to show us, they can post pictures.
Agree Jim.
Recent heat has been helping the corn to catch up a bit:
You're an optimist Mike. :)
Corn will make up a little ground, only to try and pollinate in the drier and hotter part of July and August and that part of the year is coming like a freight train.
The lucky farmers are going to be the ones that got a crop in the ground, on time.
