Day 1

Began the day at around 2 pm and benchmarked a local farm in Piatt County.  Corn on Corn planted in early May, 33,000 ppa, V6 and 9 on the condition scale.  Soils rating 175 bu/acre.  We are using a condition scale based on plant health and overall field appearance/potential.  Scale runs from 1 to 10 with 1 being the poor and 10 being excellent.  We also have soils maps rated by corn yield potential.  These are state rankings not ours.  Each State is different.  A 175 in IL is similar to a 200 in IA.



Piatt County IL

Our tour proceeded across the center part of the state on SR 136 (an extremely flat boring road).  As a general rule the crops looked excellent.  Only 2 or 3 fields were not planted to soybeans around Havana, IL.  Fields appeared to be moist to wet with some water standing between the rows in certain areas.

Our 2nd stop was south of Macomb Il in McDonough County.  Field was very wet but very good.  Jim and I took plenty of Western Illinois gumbo soil out of the field on our shoes!  This was on the edge of the area that received 7 to 10 inches of rain last week.  We could not see any obvious signs of damage yet.  A few yellowing areas but nothing severe at all.  Vitals from that corn field:  Planted late April, 36,000 ppa, V8 and 10 on the condition scale.  Soils rating 173 bushels per acre.



McDonough County IL



From that point we headed straight west into Southern IA.  From Keokuk to Mt Pleasant, we saw the poorest looking crops of Day 1.  We commented at one field (not a stop) that we would rate it as a 1 on the condition scale.  We also thought that the wet weather had affected the corn more than the soybeans.  The corn was from VE to V5 and very stunted from prolonged water exposure.  This is a poorer area to begin with, but they have been very unlucky this spring.

Our third stop in Henry County IA was just South of Mt. Pleasant IA.  the results from that stop were as follows:  Corn following soybeans, 36,000 ppa., V5, 5 on the condition scale.  The field had water damage that was similar to other farms in the area but probably looked better than the area.  Soils rating 132-151 bushels per acre.



Henry County IA



The final stop of the day was in Johnson County, IA (10 miles South of Iowa City).  The crops in the area looked less stressed than the area further south.  The field we stopped at was planted into corn with a population of 33,000 at V7 and a crop condition rating of 8.  The areas where water runs across the field were stressed, but the remainder of the field looked good.  Soils rating 193-201 bushels per acre.



Johnson County IA



Arrived in Iowa City at 8:30 pm after driving 328 miles on Day 1.  Tomorrow will be another long day.  We will be traveling the "sweet" spots of Iowa.  I would expect to see very good crops based on what we have seen today.  We will report in tomorrow!

JIM SQUARED