Scouts peg yield checks all over the board on the 2017 Farm Journal Midwest Crop Tour.
Farm Journal Midwest Crop Tour scouts have been in fields with the possibility to yield over 200 bushels to the acre and fields expected to produce only 50 bushels to the acre. Every stop on the tour?s routes tells a different story, so far, and made for some interesting conversations as the scouts regrouped in Bloomington, Illinois on Tuesday night.
Pro Farmer Editor Brian Grete said variation is the main theme of this year?s tour, and things continue to level out as the tour travels through the ?I? states.
?Still saw variability within the fields, but the yields picked up from what we saw in Ohio and the variability wasn?t nearly as extreme,? Grete said. ?Still showed stresses. We saw stresses from early in the growing season, when it was too wet and later in the growing season, when it was too dry in some of these areas. They all have some level of stress, and I think that?s the biggest takeaway.?
Rain put a damper on the tour?s schedule Tuesday, but there was not a single complaint, as scouts realized how much farmers in the area needed the moisture. Grete said the rain, which accumulated to five inches in some spots of Indiana and Illinois, will help corn and soybeans.
?I still think beans will benefit more than corn at this point, especially the corn with some stress that is starting the shutdown process, a little bit, with the plant,? Grete said. ?I think that?s the biggest thing I?ve noticed as we?ve come across western Indiana into eastern Illinois, is a lot of the lower foliage, or stock, has been compromised in some way, shape or form with some stresses. That all comes into play when the plant has to support the ear late into the growing season.?
The final numbers for Indiana came in at 171.23 bushels to the acre for corn and 1168.78 pods of soybeans in a 3?x3? square.
