Ferrie: 3,000-Mile Crop Tour Reveals the Good, Bad and Ugly
Ken Ferrie, Farm Journal Field Agronomist, spent the past two weeks doing farmer meetings and checking crops around the U.S.
In all, he and his wife, Jeanenne, put just over 3,000 miles on their vehicle, traveling through parts of Illinois and Iowa. They then turned east and went through parts of Indiana, Ohio and into New York state for meetings and crop checks before turning around and heading home to central Illinois.
“On that eastern swing, I saw no areas that were in drought stress, and a few areas that had too much rain. I saw a good crop in both corn and beans all the way to New York. The only thing is this corn crop is behind,” Ferrie says.
Late Corn Crop in The Eastern Corn Belt
On every stop, Ferrie says he saw corn ranging in development ranging from early blister to mid-pollination, meaning those crops need another 45 to 60 days to reach black layer.
Ferrie notes that when corn has black layer pushed out to mid- to late October, finding sufficient GDUs can be hard to achieve.
“You can turn 45 to 60 days into 50 to 70 days in a hurry,” he says.
Farmers in the eastern Corn Belt states told Ferrie that dry June weather was the cause of the delayed maturity, but Ferrie says he believes another factor is at work.
“I think we're seeing the aftereffects of the Canadian smoke delaying this crop,” he speculates. “Farmers will need more rain to finish the crop but more important, it will need more time in sunshine.”
Drought Stress Hits Iowa Corn and Soybeans
In Iowa, Ferrie says in the Geneseo area he saw more drought-stressed crops than he had anticipated.
“The bigger surprise was eastern Iowa, from Burlington to northeast Iowa. Some of these crops are beyond rain helping them,” he reports. “Corn ears are hanging down in some fields and plants are burned up above the ear. Bean fields are changing color on the light soils. Growers there had been telling me how dry it's getting out there, but I didn't think it was quite that rough,” he adds.
At the other end of the spectrum, Ferrie says in north-central Iowa, particularly in the Osage area, he had some of the highest yield checks of the summer.
In soybeans, Ferrie says he saw a lot of stress in soybeans that were planted behind a high-speed disk.
“I've often said it's hard to make a difference with tillage ahead of a bean. This year the shallow disk layer may be bringing some of those beans to their knees in these dry conditions,” he says.
Misery Loves Company In The Field
Then, there was the problem of weeds and more weeds.
Ferrie says throughout the trip, he saw a tremendous amount of weeds in corn and soybeans – problems farmers will want to get on top of before the 2024 planting season.
As farmers plan their fall harvest, Ferrie recommends taking note of weed pressure hotspots and making a plan to address them.
Listen to the complete Boots In The Field crop report here:
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