Midwest

One-fifth of State's Corn, Soybeans Rated Poor or Very Poor
Star Tribune, July 17, 2001

The portion of Minnesota's corn crop rated "poor" or "very poor" doubled during the past week's hot, dry spell. Soybeans also are deteriorating, according to a report released Monday by the Minnesota Agricultural Statistics Service. Meanwhile, nationwide prices for those crops plunged Monday. Soybeans suffered their biggest decline in four months, and corn fell 3 percent. Declines began Friday after weather forecasters revised their predictions, saying some parts of the Midwest might get rain and dropping predictions of 100-degree heat east of the Mississippi River. In Minnesota - where weather forecasts predict little immediate relief from the dry spell - 14 percent of the state's corn is rated poor and 4 percent is rated very poor. Minnesota soybeans also are under stress, with 13 percent rated poor and 5 percent very poor. A week earlier, 11 percent of soybeans were rated either poor or very poor. Several weeks have passed since the state received substantial rain, and farmers are concerned that crop development will be slowed because of the lack of moisture in topsoil, the report said. ... The crop report also indicated the lack of rain has stressed small grains, grasses and pastures. Small grains are being pushed to early maturity. "They are turning ripe before the heads have finished filling," according to the report.

US Corn Yields Threatened by Poor Ear Development
Reuters, August 31, 2001

Concern over the yield potential of the U.S. corn crop heightened this week as poor kernel development was seen in several U.S. Midwest states just weeks away from harvest, crop specialists said. Agronomists said they were seeing an unusually high number of corn ears that were not filling with 1 to 2 inches of the tip barren or bearing only scattered kernels. The poor ear development was probably caused by pollination failure during the silking stage when most of the Midwest was in the midst of a heat wave, crop analysts said. "We have no idea how many fields are affected but it's worse than we've seen in a while," University of Illinois agronomist Emerson Nafziger said. Crop specialists said sub-par corn ear fill has been observed throughout the top-producing states of Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota and Ohio. But it was difficult to get a handle on how overall yields would be impacted because damage was so scattered, they said.

As it stands, the latest crop estimates from trade analysts put the 2001 corn crop at around the 9.0 billion bushel mark, lower than the U.S. Department of Agriculture August projection of 9.27 billion bushels. The next USDA crop progress report will be released Sept. 12, based on crop conditions as of Aug. 31. "It's fair to say the problem is more widespread than typical," Purdue University agronomist Bob Nielsen said. Dry fields that experienced the worse damage in Illinois and Indiana were also victims of corn rootworm beetles and Japanese beetles that feed off corn silks during pollination. Some ears of corn have 15 to 20 harvestable kernels per row when a normally developed ear has about 30 to 35 kernels, Nielsen said. For every absent ring of kernels around the cob, there is a yield loss of about five bushels per acre.

Poorly pollinated corn fields in Ohio and Michigan were the direct result of dry conditions in July, sources said. "We had poor pollination in the northwest and north-central part of the state," said Pat Lipps, Ohio State University crop specialist. "Pollination occurred during the third week in July. Those areas had not had rain since the first week in June." Michigan fields in the southern third of the state were parched through most of July and August, Michigan State University agronomist Dale Harpstead said. "Statewide production could be off 30 percent," Harpstead said. Iowa State University agronomist Dale Farnham said the ear-fill problem makes the crop's potential unclear. "There's such variability in the crop it's hard to say how the overall yield will be impacted," he said.