Taking a look at yield results across the great state of Iowa. Variable is word that’s probably overused most years but certainly on display this year. Certainly the last couple of growing seasons one of the driest areas of the state has been Northwest Iowa yet this year they have seen probably more rainfall than most of the rest of the state. No question they were due. Clayton Christensen, a fourth-generation cattle, corn, and soybean producer near Spencer, Iowa, spoke with the IARN and gave an update on harvest progress at his farm.
“Chopping went really well so far this year, haven’t had too many breakdowns or anything that’s really held us up too much,” Christensen said. “The weather’s been pretty good for us, was warm a couple days. You know, we had a new to us John Deere chopper and we were able to get some yield that off it. It looked like some of our stuff was close to 30 ton an acre and on some of the drier stuff and maybe 26 to 28. It’s certainly cool to have that data.”
Certainly that harvest data is important as a management device in the precision application world that is today’s modern production agriculture. As far as soybeans, he says no combining so far in his area.
“In our area it’s been lately, you know, if you’re under 60 bushels, it’s a really rough year,” Christensen said. “So I’m guessing we’re going to be mid-60s, you could I’m guessing you could probably see some 70 bushel stuff here. We probably could use a little more rain but it we’ve caught definitely more rain than some areas around and I haven’t yield tested any or corn. But again, those conditions were pretty good. I did help a guy out do some custom stuff and they were doing yield checks at like 270 or so for corn. So that’s not a bad ticket this year.”
Those would be impressive numbers certainly across the state for any amount of rainfall this growing season, so we’ll continue to monitor harvest reports as Harvest ‘23 continues to ramp up.
