Corn yield potential in southeastern South Dakota was below average, with soyabean pod counts also low as crops showed signs of stress in the fields, scouts on annual tour found on Monday. Crop scouts on the first day of the Farm Journal Midwest Crop Tour saw signs of excessive moisture early in the growing season that hampered soyabean development. Green snap was noted in corn fields.
"The further west you are getting, it starts to drop off," said Denny Rollenhagen, a farmer from Wells, Minnesota, who was a scout on the tour. Corn yields were pegged at 154.35 bushels per acre on average (bpa), based on six field surveys on a route that collected samples in Minnehaha, McCook, Hanson, Davison and Aurora counties.
A year ago, the tour estimated corn yield potential at 166.87 bpa in the same area. The tour's three-year average for the area is 164.39 bpa. Soybean pod counts per 3-foot-by-3-foot (91-cm-by-91-cm) square averaged 980.13 pods compared to the tour's average of 1,069.20 in the area in 2016. The tour's three-year average for soyabean pod counts in the area is 1,023.69.
Scouts do not estimate soyabean yields but instead calculate the number of pods in 3-foot-by-3-foot plots to gauge yield potential. On another route that made stops in Turner, Hutchinson and Bon Homme counties, corn yields were averaging 122.9 bpa. Average soyabean pod counts on that route were 933.3.
Comments
Comments are closed.