Day 1 from the Data Bunker
Day one is complete! The tour made its way through Ohio, South Dakota and the first half of Nebraska and Indiana. We have 90 scouts on the Crop Tour with us this year and we can’t thank them enough for all their efforts this week!
My name is Emily Carolan and for the last 12 years I’ve been on tour helping with the data analysis throughout the week of Crop Tour. This year we’re excited to be back out on the same routes, with some of the same scouts for our 30TH YEAR!
Let’s dive into the numbers! We’ll save the good for later and talk about South Dakota corn first. Total yield average from the 71 samples pulled was 118.45 bu./acre, which is 21.8% less than last year and 26.7% less than the 3-year average. The biggest surprise through South Dakota was just how bad the drought stress is affecting the crop potential. The stress started early in the year with a rough planting season followed by little rain in June and July. We observed many barren plants with no ears.
We travel through about 60% of the corn acres in South Dakota in crop district 5, 6, & 9. The area that we have not toured seems to have a better outlook than the SE corner. Observations from outside of the tour area will be taken into consideration when Pro Farmer puts their analysis on the state averages on Thursday night to be released on Friday afternoon.
The pod counts in South Dakota are down 9% from what we observed last year and 12.6% from the 3-year average. The bean crop is hurting with burned up edges and fewer pods per node than what we normally observe. Nodes are farther apart than normal and any remaining flowers were burned up. Most years we say a soybean crop can still be made if a rain comes but after seeing the South Dakota crop I’m not sure if that’s the case.
Ohio is a good crop it just needs the opportunity to finish. From what the scouts on the eastern leg found, it’s farther behind than last year but the only thing that sets it apart from last year is the grain inches. We’re 5% less than last year’s grain inches but stands are really close to the last 3-year average. The average yield across the state was 174.17, down 6% vs. last year and .3% better than the 3-year average.
I always think we’re past the old adage- ‘when corn is good, beans will struggle and when beans are busting, corn will lag’. But this Ohio crop seems to follow that same pattern. The beans were behind the last year’s average pod count in a 3x3 square by 5.8% but were up from the 3-year average by 9%. The 3x3 total for this year was 1,131.64. Biggest increase this year over last was the moisture in the ground- up 30% over the 3-year average. The Ohio crop has enough moisture to carry it through to finish unlike the uncertainty in 2020 and 2019.
The scouts pulled 429 corn samples and 426 bean samples today! It was a beautiful day on the Pro Farmer Crop Tour and looks to be a great forecast as we head into Tuesday in southeast Nebraska on the western leg and Indiana/Illinois on the eastern leg.