Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig says the state?s farmers have experienced one of the driest starts to June on record.
The weekly Crop Progress Report released Monday afternoon said timely and beneficial rains fell across parts of Iowa this past weekend bringing some relief after a long stretch of hot and dry days. Crops have been showing signs of stress from the lack of rain and high heat. Farmers reported corn curling and ground cracking in some areas.
Iowa?s corn condition rated 56% good to excellent, 7 percentage points below the past week. Regionally, USDA meteorologist Brad Rippey says Midwestern crop conditions continued their downward trajectory with 65% of the nation?s corn rated in good to excellent condition.
?A week ago, that number was at 68%,? said Rippey. ?Six percent of the corn is rated very poor to poor. That is up a point from last week. Getting back to that good to excellent rating of 65%, when we started crop conditions three weeks ago, that number was 76%.?
Iowa soybean emergence was 96% complete, 1 week ahead of the 5-year average. Soybean condition declined to 57% good to excellent. Rippey takes a regional look at soybean conditions.
?It?s the Northern Corn Belt states where the biggest problems are surfacing related to heat and drought,? said Rippey. ?North Dakota leads the country in very poor to poor ratings for soybeans. Current number is 35%. Also, a pretty high number of very poor to poor soybeans in South Dakota. The current number is 14%.?
Across Iowa, 7% of soybeans were blooming on June 20th, 1 week ahead of normal. There were scattered reports of soybeans setting pods.
