Pro Farmer Crop Tour, Day 4: “Extreme” Variability Spans Iowa and Minnesota

The Pro Farmer Crop Tour commenced on Thursday, with scouts rallying in Rochester, Minn., to share images of fields they ranked as some of the worst they’d seen all week.

Here’s what scouts found on their final stretch of the tour.

Eastern leg: Iowa City, Iowa to Rochester Minn.

Variability was the theme on the eastern leg on Thursday, as Peter Meyer of S&P Global says Iowa’s corn crop is the patchiest he’s seen in his 17 years on Crop Tour.

“This crop didn’t get enough moisture and ran out of energy. It’s certainly not a disaster, but when you look at the ears and consider the potential, it could have been a monster crop,” Meyers says.

The same variability concerns only grew in soybeans as scouts made their way north. Some said they struggled to determine whether the crop was dying or drying out.

Stop 6 Howard County. Lack of moisture and hail. 119 corn and 734 pods. #pftour23 pic.twitter.com/Xgq2uZR2Xt — Bruce Lantzky (@Lantzkyfarms) August 24, 2023

“You’ll come up on a particular field with 50% a dried yellow color. I really don’t know if it’s sudden death syndrome, or if it’s their time to go,” Meyer says. “We’re sitting here with two to three days of 103° heat index. Soybeans are an August crop, so this crop will not finish very well.”

Despite the dry conditions, pod counts in Iowa look to trump those in Illinois. But the burden will be revealed within the pods, according to Jim Lafrenz, an Iowa field agronomist for Pioneer.

“Seed size will ultimately be the penalty in the next three or four weeks,” Lafrenz says.

Western leg: Spencer, Iowa to Rochester Minn.

On the western leg, Brad Nelson, a Minnesota farmer, found the state's south-central soybeans could fare worse than in Iowa.

“The first two or three counties I stopped in, their fields’ two-bean pods were very noticeable. The first plant I counted for the day had 48 pods, and at least half of those were two-bean pods. This is very concerning,” Nelson says. 

Heat stress, coupled with drought, cuts each plant’s yield by 20% to 25%. Ron Obermoller, a Brewster, Minn., farmer, says he’s still betting on average-yielding beans. 

“I think last year the state came in at 52 bu. Our state checkoff is still estimating 50 bu. beans,” Obermoller says. 

Corn showed the same stress as soybeans. Scout Tim Gregerson says the fields he walked showed signs of burn.

“The corn is fired up one leaf below the ear. You can clearly see there’s been drought stress here in Minnesota,” Gregerson says. “We also don’t have the kernel depth to have a monster yield, nor finish above average.” 

Guess I'm just not seeing the good #corn on #pftour23. Six stops in southwest Minnesota (Nobles, Murray, Cottonwood Counties). #Corn yield averaged 176 bu/acre versus 223 in this same stretch last year and 211 in 2021. Grain length and kernel rows are lighter than usual. pic.twitter.com/UKiDsv33ON — Karen Braun (@kannbwx) August 24, 2023

Dale Lucht, a Jackson, Minn., farmer, finds the 2023 corn crop is similar to 2021. He says that year, his yields came in near insurance levels. With this week’s heat in tow, he anticipates the same yield outcome this fall.