DES MOINES, Iowa – Only 37 percent of Iowa’s corn crop is mature, which is about 10 days behind normal, according to USDA. Additionally only 34 percent of Iowa’s soybean crop is dropping leaves, which put this year’s beans five days behind normal.
Luckily, the next week looks like it will bring ideal temperatures for corn and soybeans.
“Basically, for this coming seven days, anyway, it looks pretty good,” says State Climatologist Harry Hillaker, and that means warmer than usual temperatures and relative dryness over the same time period. But after that, Hillaker says the weather is likely to change.
“One week out from now, from then on it could be a very different story,” he explains. “Still warm; warmer than usual, but there could be a pretty wet period coming up, you know, say roughly the time October starts, and that first week of October could be rather wet. Unusually warm as well, but at this point, we don’t really like to see rain in great quantities.”
One slight advantage to wet conditions is that it makes a hard freeze that much more difficult. Hillaker says near-freezing temperatures have already visited the state, both by way of expected frost on the 13th of September, and with a second minimal dusting one week ago. In neither instance did temperatures get low enough to cause damage to the crops, and Hillaker expects conditions to remain above freezing until early October.
“The outlook looks pretty warm this coming week, and even the week after,” says Hillaker. “Really, very high probabilities for above-normal temperatures, so any freeze probability seems to be very, very low for the next couple of weeks.”
To hear more about the harvest forecast, click on the audio player above.
