Very little has changed with regard to the amount of rainfall we have received. We are in the final stages of crop development for corn and soybeans and we need some rain to finish this crop off. In the fields I scouted most recently, it appears that we do not have leaf diseases and everything looks healthy. The biggest yield-limiting factor we have now is moisture.
In the last two weeks we?ve had almost an inch of rain, which helped maintain the crop but did not do much to change the soil moisture. We are dry here in Williams County but it gets even drier as you go south into Defiance and Paulding county. They definitely are drier than we are.
I am hearing reports of aphids in northeast Indiana and I am concerned that our June-planted soybeans could be affected by them. We?re going to start scouting all of our soybean fields and get prepared to spray them again with insecticides if we find soybean aphids at threshold levels that could cause economic damage. The replanted soybeans are a month behind and they still have plenty of opportunity to put on yield therefore the aphids could still significantly affect the yield on those acres.
The replant corn is still green and there will definitely be tip-back in those fields. In the early-planted corn, the husks are starting to loosen up and it is close to black layer. We have a few mid Group II soybeans that should be ready to harvest sometime soon after the Farm Science Review. I don?t think we?ll do anything in the corn until the last week of September as well. We are currently doing pre-harvest inspections on the harvesting equipment. It?s a great opportunity to make any preventative repairs.
I think it will be a long harvest because of the delayed maturity of the crops. We definitely will be jumping back and forth between corn and soybeans. We?ll harvest the early soybeans and corn first then we?ll jump over and finish the late-planted soybeans then the late corn. We will not be able to go into one crop, finish it and then move on to the next.
