GRAND ISLAND, Neb. - Nebraska farmers faced the same weather extremes as the rest of the Corn Belt this spring, but are seeing improved prospects for the crop heading into harvest as long as the crop makes it to maturity.
According to USDA's weekly crop progress report, on Sept. 15, Nebraska corn was 82% dented versus the 90% five-year average and 22% of the soybeans were dropping leaves compared to the normal 44%.
"It's very geographic specific but here in Nebraska we're certainly a couple weeks behind," Matt Dolch, NK district manager for the western Corn Belt says.
Greg Greving, who farms near Chapman, Neb., northeast of Grand Island, says his crop is late, but development isn't as far behind as farmers in other areas of the state. "Our corn and soybeans I would say are somewhere between a week and 10 days behind, which from everybody that I've talked to we're pretty fortunate," he says.
Jim Miller farms near Belden in northeast Nebraska and says corn maturity is behind two to three weeks. "The corn we're probably just a little over half way down on the milk line, so we've got a way to go there," he says. He is also anticipating more corn drying with the late crop and the harvest could be a drug out affair.
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Tony Johanson farms near Oakland in east-central Nebraska and says the frost date is a big concern for his soybean crop. "We're seeing some fields start to sanest right now and have their natural die off, but there are a lot of soybeans that are still flowering this late in the game which is not typical," he says.
Despite lagging development, many farmers are more optimistic about yield prospects going into the harvest. Greving says they've started harvesting seed corn and yields have been good or a little better than expected, so he's more excited about the crop than just a few weeks ago. "We usually like to be in that mid-200s all the time and I honestly think we're going to land about right there on our irrigated corn that was planted in mid-April," he says.
Miller says his corn yield potential will be below last year, but is also better than he expected a few weeks ago. "I'm thinking we could see some 250-bushel corn on our irrigated," he says. "Dryland, I think we could be in the upper close to 200 on dryland corn in our area."
During Husker Harvest Days, Dolch says he talked to some farmers around the Grand Island and Lincoln areas that were taking out high moisture corn. "They talked about yields being 90% of what they saw last year just in some of that high moisture corn. So, a little bit off from the average but hopefully that strengthens."
Johanson isn't as optimistic about his corn and thinks yields will be down 10% to 20%. He says test weights should be acceptable with favorable weather for filling. However, he expects dryland corn to be disappointing as his area has been dry. "I have some dryland fields that I think are probably going to be 20 to 30 bushels off my historic yields," he says. So he also projects 2019 won't be in the top five crops the state has produced.
Soybeans
The outlook for soybeans isn't as rosy. Production is expected to be lower than 2018 not just because of the season, but disease pressure. Miller says with the excess moisture, white mold is an issue. "We used a fungicide, actually a couple of applications of fungicides to try to prevent that but are still seeing some signs of it," he says. Miller says that will hurt yields. "Probably not quite as good as last year, but I think we're going to have pretty fair yields in our area, I hope," he says.
Soybean pod counts have also been lower with the shorter soybean plants and Johanson is counting fewer nodes at 12 to 15 per plant. He says that means less yield potential. "I wouldn't be surprised if we're 10% reduction over last year," he says. "Last year we had a really good growing season."
