We started our morning in Boone, IA waiting for the sun to rise over our first crop stop. Our route took us first as far west as Sac City, IA where we continued to try and comprehend what the windstorm on Aug 10 did to the corn crop. We did note some bean damage but only in fields affected by both wind and hail. We then turned north, through Spencer, IA and into Minnesota. Reached our most northwestern point of the trip in the early afternoon. The rest of the day we spent heading east through Minnesota and back into northeastern Iowa. Another 450 miles and 7 crop stops…
When asked what we saw today the most common denominator was a lack of moisture causing a haircut to yields. This was especially true in western Iowa. It was less of a problem as we traveled across Minnesota and we suspect crops even further north faired even better. We are still yet to use any of our creative solutions to managing mud. We have started having a conversation about test weight concerns with this year’s finishing weather. Especially because of the advanced state of the corn crop.
Tomorrow, we will start again crossing what we suspect is another heavily wind damage region as we travel from Waterloo to Davenport in Iowa. After that, we are interested in seeing northern Illinois which has been drier of late than the central areas we have already sampled.
We wish those along the Louisiana and Texas coast safe harbor. Until tomorrow, this is the IAG Crop Tour signing off!