Making good progress harvest wise across the state of Iowa, still ahead of the five-year average and reaching a key threshold. The crop progress report from USDA’s National Ag Statistics Service Upper Midwest Regional Office was delayed a day due to the Columbus Day holiday. The numbers look like this from Rebecca Alter, USDA statistician.
“Corn maturity reached 96% this week, 8 days ahead of last year and 11 days ahead of the five-year average corn harvested for grain reached 30% state. What 5 days ahead of last year and six days ahead of the average moisture content of sealed corn being harvested for grain was at 19%.”
The condition rating did drop slightly to 48%, good to excellent, although that importance this time of year obviously is fairly minimal. As for soybeans, they’re slightly ahead of averages.
“Dropping leaves was 94% this week, 3 days ahead of last year and five days ahead of the average soybeans harvested reached 52% one day ahead of last year and seven days ahead of the average. So, living condition declined slightly to 48%, good to excellent.”
Of course, the National Ag Statistics Service does not offer a yield reporting mechanism, yet various reports have the soybeans being more variable than the corn as far as within the field. In some case it’s a 50% difference, anywhere from maybe 30 to 80 bushels per acre in the same pass. For corn it could be a 40- or 50-bushel range, and obviously if you’re talking about 200 bushels per acre yield, the percentage change there is less.
