Monday’s U.S.D.A. crop report showed the warm dry weather last week led to some improvement. The report said corn is beginning to tassel in scattered fields across the state and the amount of the crop in good to excellent condition increased to 58 percent — a one percent increase from the previous week.
Iowa Secretary of Agriculture, Bill Northey, visited a wetland area just east of Sheffield Monday. Northey says the north-central part of the state is one of the hardest hit. However he noted that the rest of the state, specifically areas in the southwest Iowa are doing okay.
“Over around the Le Mars area there is some corn that’s in good shape there. I was down in southwest Iowa and there is some corn there as well that is in good shape. Probably more in better shape in the north-central, north-east Iowa area,” Northey says. Northey also noted that much of the corn he is seeing on his travels around the state is not over waist high which is behind normal for this time of year.
But, Northey believes things are getting better. “We know we have some crop that’s not going to be in the ground and we know we’ve got some struggles with some of the crop that is out there,” Northey says, “all of it is looking better than it did two weeks ago when we didn’t have a lot of sun and we’re just coming off a lot of wet weather. It’s getting better, it looks better, we are starting to see some good stuff between the wet spots. The wet spots are still there.”
Northey also made stops on Monday at a farm in rural Plainfield in Bremer County and in Waterloo at the Black Hawk County Farm Bureau Annual Meeting.
By Jesse Stewart, KGLO, Mason City