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Agronomist: SW Iowa crops ‘look very good from where we started’

An agronomist covering southwest Iowa says the corn and soybean crops there seem to have come through last week’s extreme heat in pretty good shape.

“I don’t think the extreme hot weather really helped us at all. But I don’t think it really hindered us as much as we probably think it did, either,” says Drew Clemmensen, a regional agronomist with the Iowa Soybean Association.

He says the fact that the corn crop is running a week or more behind normal may have been “a blessing in disguise”.

“It delayed that tassel and silk-setting timeframe that really comes into play weather-wise, when you don’t want those really hot temperatures—and we might have avoided that last week,” he says. “Now, as we go forward the next couple weeks, we have more ideal conditions for that pollination timing.”

Clemmensen says soybeans also look “very good” considering where they started.

“Right now my biggest concern is on some 30-inch row beans that, just because of the delayed planting and kind of our shifted growing season, are not going to complete a canopy. Which is problematic for maybe some weed pressure coming on here late and not closing out that row.”

Clemmensen says crops in southwest Iowa have been helped by timely rains this summer.