US Weather Latest
Monday night's USDA crop progress report shows that harvesting is running 3 to 4 weeks late due to very poor weather, says Gail Martell of Martell Crop Projections. The majority of Midwest and Mid South farms have received 50% above-normal rainfall over the past month. In addition, crop drying has been poor due to cold temperatures, 9 F below average last week in the Corn Belt, she says.
The weather is not improving and in fact looks extremely wet again this week. The updated GFS model indicates heavy rain in the entire grain belt, except in parts of Michigan and Ohio, she adds.
A hard freeze on the weekend damaged immature corn in the Eastern Midwest. Corn ripe and safe from frost was 70-80% in Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio, when a hard freeze occurred Sunday night. Ordinarily, a mid October freeze would not be cause for concern, but slow development this year is causing 2-4 week delays in maturity, warns Gail. However, corn that matured safely before the freeze will make very high yields, she says.
Meanwhile, two soybean diseases - sudden death syndrome (SDS) and soybean white mold - are wide spread in Iowa this season, she warns. Plant pathologist XB Yang at Iowa State University said that SDS showed up in August in almost every Iowa region. White mold was so abundant in northern Iowa that Yang found this yield-reducing disease in almost every field on a September 18th scouting trip. The high incidence of disease makes the USDA Iowa soybean yield at 52 bushels per acre seem too high, as that estimate is 5.5% above trend, concludes Gail.
Gail is just getting here website up and running, so why not take advantage of it - whilst it's still free!
Martell Crop Projections
The weather is not improving and in fact looks extremely wet again this week. The updated GFS model indicates heavy rain in the entire grain belt, except in parts of Michigan and Ohio, she adds.
A hard freeze on the weekend damaged immature corn in the Eastern Midwest. Corn ripe and safe from frost was 70-80% in Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio, when a hard freeze occurred Sunday night. Ordinarily, a mid October freeze would not be cause for concern, but slow development this year is causing 2-4 week delays in maturity, warns Gail. However, corn that matured safely before the freeze will make very high yields, she says.
Meanwhile, two soybean diseases - sudden death syndrome (SDS) and soybean white mold - are wide spread in Iowa this season, she warns. Plant pathologist XB Yang at Iowa State University said that SDS showed up in August in almost every Iowa region. White mold was so abundant in northern Iowa that Yang found this yield-reducing disease in almost every field on a September 18th scouting trip. The high incidence of disease makes the USDA Iowa soybean yield at 52 bushels per acre seem too high, as that estimate is 5.5% above trend, concludes Gail.
Gail is just getting here website up and running, so why not take advantage of it - whilst it's still free!
Martell Crop Projections