Farmers in west-central Iowa have had an extremely challenging year from the combination of extreme drought and damage from the August 10th derecho.
Iowa State Extension field agronomist Mike Witt?s coverage area is Audubon, Carroll, Crawford, Greene, Guthrie, Harrison, and Shelby counties. All of those counties have been included in the US Drought Monitor?s D3, or extreme drought, coverage area for the last several weeks. Witt says it?s not a pretty sight when scouting fields of late.
?The crops out in west-central Iowa are looking a little rough,? he said. ?The drought has not been very kind to a lot of the crops going on out there and the derecho didn?t help. There is a lot of droughty corn and drought damaged soybeans right now.?
?A lot of the corn and soybeans have matured at an extremely quick pace,? Witt continued. ?I was in the field just the other day, took a moisture on a corn sample, and it was already at 27 percent moisture. That?s pretty far along for where we are supposed to be at this time of year. There is going to be a lot of poor-quality corn and soybeans that are going to be coming out of west-central Iowa this year.?
Witt says farmers in west-central Iowa will have to change their strategies.
?If we are going forward with a lot of downed corn, which is a lot of the area out in west-central Iowa, there?s a lot of damage from the windstorm because the drought made the stalks not exactly the best to begin with and then they got blown over,? Witt said. ?That means it will be a lot slower harvest that will occur. Farmers will have to take into account that they might have to harvest one way and other things like that. They need to be prepared for the stress of that situation.?
Witt says if any growers have questions regarding their current crop or upcoming harvest, call his cell at 641-430-2600.
