Updated Totals

Well it has been two weeks since the last update and nearly every farm in the tour received some rain.  (Table is below).  The areas that were wet continue to be wet and the drier areas are still dry.  Additionally the heat units continue to be ahead of normal despite the cooler last two weeks.

The 5 driest areas compared to the 10 year norm are all in Illinois.  Stark and La Salle Counties are 4 inches behind the normal precipitation.  However these farms all should be almost pollinated by now. So can they get some rain over the next few weeks for grain fill?  I would expect all those fields to have high yield potential, but with the shortage of rain, grain fill rainfall is going to be important to realizing that high potential.

The 5 wettest areas are in Iowa and Nebraska.  Cass IA was very dry when we visited and has received 4 plus inches of rain since our visit.  Henry IL has received the most rain since our visit with nearly 9.5 inches since June 20.

Heat will be the issue over the next couple of weeks as a ridge builds in the Midwest over the next couple of weeks.  The forecast is for high temps and low precip so look for the markets to react as we change the forecast from day to day in this very critical time for corn reproduction.  All sites are at least 3 days ahead of normal GDD's with the Nebraska sites being 8 days ahead of the norm.

We are sure to see the skies filled with aircraft spraying fungicides this week in Central Illinois.  Please get out and scout your fields as we are starting to find gray leaf spot in many of our fields at low levels.  Heat and humidity are perfect conditions to exacerbate this disease.

Check back in a couple of weeks for updated charts and information.  Thanks for following our thoughts.

Processed returns and updated rainfall

As I had a few more hours of sleep and a chance to reflect on this year's tour, I am sure of a few things.

1.  The USDA crop ratings are accurate.  Not that I doubted them going into the tour, but at one time I was a source for the report and know how little actual factual information goes into that report.  What we saw over 1,755 miles was that all the crops from a visual standpoint looked great.  Too much  water in a few fields in southern MN and Eastern NE showed up, but the areas were typical in that the lowest areas that almost always flood in a normal to wet year were gone.  Today all crops look good from the road.  If heat builds over the next month and we turn off the faucet, there will be issues in several of the fields we visited.

2.  Plant populations were very good and very consistent.  This year's tour showed that farmers did a better job of seeding and have pushed populations across the board.  I thought we might see some reductions in the final counts for economic reasons.  I don't think that happened in any big way.

3.  As a general rule, the crop is very close in maturity.  What this means is that pollination is going to occur over a shorter than normal window in the corn belt.  As I watched the weather video from our friends at Agrible this morning, I sort of cringed.  There is a potential dome of heat to arrive over the entire area we toured in the second to third week of July.  If you short the moisture over that area, it will cause problems even for the very early pollinating areas.  If you study the last two years, the difference is heat.  We did not experience warmer than normal years in 2014 and 2015.  It looks like 2016 will be warmer than normal.  In my opinion, heat is a definite limiting factor for our corn yields. Water cannot be underestimated, but even with plenty of water, heat can and will damage yields as we progress through the reproductive stages.

4.  We didn't discuss much about an acreage switch.  We only had two fields that we expected to be one crop and it was the other.  One we expected to be in soybeans and it was corn following corn and one that was long term corn on corn was actually in soybeans.  It is hard to estimate, but we didn't come away thinking there was any major crop acreage switch.  We all know if acres that were switched for one reason or another, but for us to say that we saw that on our tour would be wrong. We saw normal cropping for the areas we traveled.  I guess the USDA will tell us Thursday what happened.

5.  I have attached one of the charts we used as we traveled.  I plotted out every field we were to stop at and tracked the rainfall for the year, since 4-10 and how that compared to the 10 year avg and 30 year avg.  We felt like we pulled the rain clouds with us last week as it seemed to follow our travels. We are sorry that we didn't leave it in a couple of the driest areas, specifically in Greene Co IA and Sioux Co IA.  They both could have used an inch or two.

Special thanks to my travel partner Jim Prough.  He was the man in front of the camera, driver #2, and chief note taker.  His perspective on the crop and how it affects our marketing plans is incredibly valuable.

I will try to update the blog from now through September on a weekly basis.  Follow along please and thanks for keeping up with us.

Day 4 Illinois afternoon And wrap up

Day 4 Illinois morning

Final Iowa stop

Day 3 afternoon East Central Iowa

Day 3 morning