(Lakefield, Mn.)– While Monday night’s derecho wreaked havoc across a number of northwest Iowa counties, most of Dickinson county and northern Emmet county escaped the worse of the damaging wind, along with a large part of southwest Minnesota. Jim Nesseth of Extended Ag Services of Lakefield says producers in those areas are breathing a sigh of relief…
“Everybody just crosses their fingers when you get a forecast that you might have a potential for derecho-type winds. You’re going oh no, here it comes. You know everything looks so good and then we’re going to have some problems.”
Nesseth says most of the corn has reached the dough stage with soybeans now setting pods…
“We’re borderline maybe of being saturated in some spots. We’re seeing a little chlorosis showing up in some beans but overall we seem to have pretty good root development, not a lot of phytopthora showing up or ryzoc showing up, those types of root rot diseases, so things look good. We’re setting pods now and so again the potential is really good there. Our scouts have been out and we’re starting to see a little bit more of an increase in aphid populations but when we have such good conditions like this we can tolerate higher aphid populations and when it’s moist in a season like this we get some actual fungal disease that comes up that helps control aphid pops. And so we just have to get out there and look and scout but right now we don’t see anything close to be calling for any treatments for aphids at this time.”
Nesseth says even soil conditions are excellent right now…
“I’ve never seen a year like this, Steve. We go out there, we’re doing some root digs in some of the corn plants looking for corn rootworm feeding. There is some of that out there and it kind of makes you a little nervous when you get a forecast for some high winds because that ground is so soft and nice and mellow. I’ve never seen it like that this late. Even some of these roots that don’t have a lot of rootworm feeding, you could actually pull them out relatively easy. It’s just incredible how good soil conditions are that we have out there.”
Nesseth says if there’s a downside to things it would be with the small grains crop. He says there is severe lodging going on with oats.
