Day 2 was another extremely hot day for scouting. The morning started out warm and very wet again, and turned very hot in the afternoon. Luckily Day 2 is our shortest day of sampling on the week. We started the day in Grand Island and worked our way Southeast, ending the day in Nebraska City. The counties today extended from Grand Island east to the Missouri River and South to the Kansas border, encompassing crop districts 5, 6, 8 and 9. The yields in the Irrigated corn were very good today. My particular route moving east out of Grand Island and turning south at York saw a healthy corn crop with the exception of a couple of areas that had been hit with hail during the growing season.
Our 11 irrigated corn samples averaged 197.2 BPA. The highs were a 234 and 235 both in York county. The low-irrigated sample was a 168 in Saline County. We pulled 9 dryland samples today with an average of 160.8 BPA, with a high of 201 in Gage County, and a low of 102 in Nemaha County. I was mildly surprised by the Dry land samples as a whole, but I’m just on one route.
On the soybean side we also pulled 11 irrigated samples with an average of 1173 pods in a 3x3 square. Our high was 1816 pods in Saline County and a low of 710 also pulled in Saline County. On the 9 dryland samples we had an average of 1094 pods in a 3x3 square, with the high a whopping 1958 pods in Johnson County, and the low 237 pods in York County. The 237 was in a field that was under extreme heat and dry stress, and we weren’t sure that the pods we counted would even make soybeans if rain doesn’t come soon.
Outside of the 103 degree heat this afternoon we had a good day of sampling. I was impressed at how the corn and soybeans are holding up under this current heat wave. Most of our corn samples were ether in early dent or full dent stage. We found a few samples at half to ¾ milk line. The soybeans were in full pod set and we saw no plants still flowering today. I was also impressed with the weed control in the soybeans today. This was the cleanest soybean crop I have sampled in a while in Nebraska.
Tomorrow we move into Western Iowa, scouting the counties mainly West of I35 from The southern border north to Minnesota. A lot of questions about the Iowa crop should be answered tomorrow.