(Lakefield, Mn.)– Area crops continue to make excellent progress. Jim Nesseth of Extended Ag Services in Lakefield says the cooler conditions earlier this week came at a perfect time…
“The thing that you always hope for during grain fill is cooler temperatures and kind of extend that period out. That seems to really improve grain quality and test weight. So right now with the corn we’re probably at that late milk to early dough stage and so yeah, when you can have some cooler temperatures there and kind of let those plants catch their breath a little bit you just get better fill. And most of the beans now are in that early R-4 stage and so that’s during pod fill and again, as long as we’ve got, you know, moisture and we seem to be running pretty good in that regard. I would say some of the lighter ground and of course your textured soils we’re starting to see some moisture stress there so we certainly wouldn’t turn down any rainfall, significant rainfall amounts that we could maybe get here in the next week or two, but as of now I think the crop is going good. It’s kind of holding it’s own in that high yield potential range yet and so if we get some more rain that will just help that maybe achieve those goals, higher goals that we’re hoping for in terms of yield.”
Nesseth says we’re also running above normal when it comes to growing degree days. That, combined with the earlier planting this year, has crops developing ahead of normal. He says that could translate into an earlier than normal harvest this fall.
