The U.S. corn and soybean harvest usually picks up pace in mid-September if the weather permits, and a drier, warmer pattern should be favorable for a handful of the Crop Watch producers to get started this week.
Only four Crop Watch locations recorded rain in the last several days, the top amount being 0.8 inch (20 mm) in Ohio. Warmer temperatures last week pushed crops closer to maturity, and the warm and drier trend should stick around through the next week or so as harvest ramps up.
The Kansas corn fields and both of the ones in Illinois could be picked this week along with the western Iowa and Indiana soybeans. Next week should be heavier on soybeans as harvest could occur for the fields in South Dakota, Nebraska, Ohio, eastern Iowa, southeastern Illinois and Indiana if not this week.
Both Minnesota fields should have an October harvest, along with corn in Nebraska and the Dakotas and soybeans in Kansas and western Illinois. The North Dakota soybeans could be ready at the end of this month.
Each week the producers have rated yield potential in their subject corn and soybean fields on a 1-to-5 scale. A score of 3 reflects yields close to farm average, 4 is solidly above, and 5 is well above average or record yields.
The 11-field, unweighted average corn yield was unchanged this week at 3.82 with no adjustments made. Soybean yield stayed at 3.66 after a small increase in western Iowa was offset by a slight trim in Ohio.
Those averages are only slightly below the early August ones, though the U.S. government’s forecast on Friday suggested that both corn and soybean yields should be better than was expected a month ago.
Early harvest results around the western Iowa soybeans have been excellent, and nearby in Nebraska, the producer thinks there could be upside to his current soybean expectation. Corn harvest is already under way in Kansas, and early results are as expected with yields close to average.
In the east, the Ohio producer is disappointed with the pod growth near the tops of the soybean plants. Both the Ohio and Indiana growers say they are much more excited for the corn possibilities than the soybean ones. Disease is a growing concern in western Illinois, and that could cause corn ears to come out lighter than expected.
The following are the states and counties of the 2021 Crop Watch corn and soybean fields: Griggs, North Dakota; Kingsbury, South Dakota; Freeborn, Minnesota; Burt, Nebraska; Rice, Kansas; Audubon, Iowa; Cedar, Iowa; Warren, Illinois; Crawford, Illinois; Tippecanoe, Indiana; Fairfield, Ohio.
Source: Reuters (Reporting by Karen Braun; Editing by Matthew Lewis)