Mid-Harvest 2020 Yields Report

Our 2020 harvest is underway, and results are mixed.  We can however, make a few generalizations about how 2020 turned out.  Here’s a link to the current Midwest drought map:

https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/CurrentMap/StateDroughtMonitor.aspx?Midwest

As you can see, we are in a drought.  Droughts take extended time to develop, but we can get a flood in one night.

As the drought developed, our earliest corn was not hurt as badly as our later corn- so our early maturing corn which was planted early has been yielding over 200 bushels in most soils with a CSR over 65.  The lighter ground is still good -160 plus.  The later (replant) corn was flowering during the July/August heat and wind.  It is 30-40% behind our early corn.

In Southern Iowa, we need August rain to get good soybean yields.  We didn’t get it.  Especially damaged by the drought were our earliest varieties which were planted early-the 2.8-3.0’s.  They did not receive any benefit of the early September rainfall; they had already reached maturity.  Yields for those beans ranged from 18-40 bushels per acre depending on soil type.  We are now getting into the later maturing varieties and they are significantly better, but we won’t have any bin busters south of highway 92.

As you work north the situation is all about the Derecho wind storm which devastated uncounted acres.  Moisture in northern Iowa was mostly adequate, and fantastic yields are being reported. Nearly 300 bushel corn and lots of soybeans in the 70’s.

2020 was a S*** show for lots of reasons that we won’t go into here.  Please be safe as you work your way through harvest, and know that we are here for all your current crop needs and an optimistic outlook for our 2021 prospects.  Our topic next week will focus on input and commodity price trends for that 2021 crop; we will need to make some planting decisions and marketing decisions real soon.