It’s still early, but the harvest season in northwest Iowa is getting off to a good start, according to ISU Extension agronomist Leah Ten Napel.
“Overall, we have a lot of acres left to go,” Ten Napel says. “A very small percentage has been harvested so far. The areas that are getting harvested are actually at fairly good, harvestable moistures, which is great to hear, and yields are not coming back all too shabby for the year we’ve had.”
Weather conditions during this growing season were widely varied, she says, and so are the yields. “Some of our soybean fields were hit really hard with late-season pests and those yields are going to be down in those areas,” she says, “but overall, corn yields have been average-to-above-average and soybean yields maybe slightly below-average-to-average, so far, what I’m hearing.”
Ten Napel says some farmers are predicting about a 200-bushel average for the corn crop. “I would say for our area of northwest Iowa, we may be over that 200 bushel average, in my area,” she says, “just from what I’m hearing so far.” Ten Napel says much of her region received adequate moisture this season, though she notes, parts of Woodbury and Monona counties, just south of Sioux City, were among the driest in the state.
(By John Slegers, KLEM, Le Mars)