(Lakefield, Mn.)– The hot, dry weather is starting to take a toll on crops in the area. Jim Nesseth of Extended Ag Services in Lakefield says crop conditions have deteriorated quite a bit in many areas over the past week…
“The crop conditions just changed dramatically this past week. You know we just haven’t had enough moisture in the month of August to carry us through these high heat periods that we have and when these temperatures get into the 90’s and flirt with 100 it just takes a toll on the crop, and so maturity, bottom line, maturity is just coming much faster than normal and when you have that, you know, you just don’t get that good grain fill and kernel fill and kernel size might be affected and so it’s, you know, I just think we’ve probably taken 10 percent off the top end of our corn and soybean yields, so it’s frustrating for a lot of our producers to see a crop kind of deteriorate like it has.”
And while some rain chances are in the forecast in coming days, Nesseth says it will more than likely be too late to help this year’s crops any more…
“When you drive by you notice a lot of fields where the ears are hanging and that means that plant has shut down. I don’t know if we can get enough. It might help us with soybeans that are still green yet and in that R-6 stage, they might get a little bit more fill and the same way with some of the later maturity corn that’s on some heavy soils. We might get some help out of that, but, you know, it’s kind of looking like it might be a little bit too late to really make a big impact in terms of yield.”
Nesseth says there is a possibility some of the 95 day maturity corn may have been able to beat the heat, but he says we won’t know for sure until harvest, which Nesseth says will likely be bumped up even earlier now. He says a lot of producers are cutting silage right now.
