Perched on the edge of what’s considered to be abnormally dry to moderate drought, west central Illinois farmer Brent Johnson had high hopes for yields at the start of this year. A strong start with even emergence set the groundwork for a solid crop. Instead, as harvest rushes in, the reality of an extremely dry finish to summer is also setting in.
“The corn right now, the general consensus is it’s off 20 to 30 bushels [per acre] from last year and soybeans are off by about 8 to 15 [bu. per acre],” Johnson says.
Johnson started combining on September 3. Two weeks into harvest, he’s finding a good crop — but definitely not as good as last year.
“We didn’t have the finish that we did last year in corn or soybeans. Nothing is ideal, right? But with 98 million acres of corn, maybe we didn’t need that finish. But yields are off,” he says.
Some of Johnson’s fields haven’t seen rain in seven weeks. For other fields, it’s been as much as nine months since they’ve had measurable rainfall. And not only has it turned dry in their area of Illinois, but temperatures have soared over the past couple of weeks with temperatures above 90°F. In fact, where he farms just outside of Springfield, Ill., they recorded the hottest day of the year so far over the weekend.
“Oddly enough, as much heat as we’ve received, the corn is not drying as fast as I thought it would,” Johnson says. “We tried to harvest a field this morning that was planted end of April and it was still 30% moisture. So, we moved and we’re here now.”
Not Just Drought Eating Into Yields
Johnson says the dry weather definitely trimmed yield in their area, but there were other factors he thinks played a role as well.
“Between the dry weather, the extreme heat, the high nighttime temperatures — and then something we don’t often see — but the hazy days, the Canadian smoke, it impacted the crop. It just wasn’t a perfect year,” he says.
Kernel Weight is an Issue This Year
Johnson says the other surprise is kernel weights, and the fact it’s taking more kernels to make a bushel this year.
“That’s really where we see our highest yields year in, year out is when we have good, easy finishes to this corn crop in August and September, and we bring it to the finish line slowly. We expand those kernels. It’s kind of like going back to a buffet three, four or five times and finishing off that bowl of ice cream. They just swell, and that’s where we get our kernel weight. We don’t have that this year. We’re just racing to the finishing line,” Johnson says.
May Planted Corn May Be Hit the Hardest
The opposite happened this year. A quick finish is compromising kernel weight. And now what he’s concerned about is what the late-summer dryness could mean for his later-planted corn.
“I am a little concerned that maybe the May corn won’t be as good as it normally is because of the weather — similar to what we talked about with the later-maturity beans finishing later. So, it’s going be interesting,” Johnson says.
Johnson says for the past several years, his May planted corn has been his best yielding corn. But this year, he doubts that will hold true. He says some of his corn and soybean fields could still benefit from a rain, but it doesn’t look promising from the forecast.
Dry Weather Means Disease Pressure is Low
It may not be a perfect finish or a record crop, but one thing Johnson is thankful for is that they haven’t been overwhelmed by disease.
“Because we were so dry — we were much drier here than Iowa — we don’t have the Southern Rust pressure here that I’m seeing on social media and reading about that Iowa has,” he adds.
Soybean Yields Could Suffer
Johnson says even though yields are off, he’s actually impressed with how this corn crop finished this year in spite of the lack of rain and the heat. But with no rain in August, soybeans could be a different story.
“Beans are tricky so far because normally, we would be running pretty hard in. We use a fungicide, so we’re used to green stems and some green pods. But the beans are not maturing all at one time from what we’ve seen. So, the moisture in our sample of beans is relative to how many green beans and how many green pods are actually in the sample when they pull it at the elevator. We have yet to get a very good sample in beans, but again, we’ve only cut two fields. They were disappointing in yield. [We were] thinking that our late Group 2s would be some of our best, which gives me worry about some of the later stuff,” Johnson says.
Johnson says he if he had to describe this year’s crop, it would be “just ho-hum.”
A ho-hum crop, and one that had such a promising start here in west central Illinois, reveals record yields aren’t on tap in Illinois this year.
What caused the sudden shift to dry and hot weather? Watch the video below as Drew Lerner of World Weather looks at the drivers and how long it could last.
