Indiana

Even with a few storms coming through Indiana this week, much of the state still needs rain, and it’s stressing corn and soybean crops.

“Hot weather is almost as detrimental as the lack of rain,” said Curt Campbell, Wabash County extension educator. “(The corn) doesn’t pollinate well (in the heat).”

Campbell has been scouting area fields and hasn’t found many diseased areas. “I think it’s too hot for the bugs, too,” he said.
On Sunday, Wabash received about 0.47 inch of rain, according to the Weather Underground website. Last Wednesday, Campbell said he received about 0.3 inch of rain at his house and some areas of the county got closer to an inch.

Nearby Peru, Ind., received 0.24 inch last Wednesday and 0.1 inch Saturday, according to the website. “It’s looking better than it should for the amount of rain (we’ve received),” Campbell said, “but (the crops) are definitely stressed and we need some rain.”
Further south in Madison and Hamilton counties, Campbell said soybean plants are taller than in Wabash County. Most of the beans in Wabash County are 18 inches to two feet tall, with the northern part of the county having taller plants because of more rain.

Sixty-six percent of the soybean crop is blooming, according to the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service’s (NASS) Crop & Weather report for the week ending July 31. Last year at this time 86 percent had bloomed and the five-year average was 75 percent.

Twenty-two percent of soybeans are setting pods, compared with 57 percent last year, according to NASS. The five-year average was 33 percent.

Campbell said rain will be needed for pod development. Right now soybean condition is rated 44 percent good to excellent, according to NASS. That compares to 64 percent last year.

Eighty-one percent of the corn crop has silked, according to NASS. Last year 95 percent of the crop had silked at this time, and 85 percent is the five-year average.

Eight percent of the corn is in dough, according to NASS. This compares to 35 percent last year and 21 percent for the five-year average. The corn crop is rated 41 percent good to excellent, compared with 63 percent last year.

By Laurie Kiefaber
Indiana Correspondent

Illinois

Illinois farmers are going to face a pretty significant loss in their corn crop, even if temperatures cool and rain returns to areas that are lacking, according to Emerson Nafziger, an extension agronomist with the University of Illinois.

“A fair amount of damage has taken place and it’s not really reversible,” he explained. “What we don’t know is if we’re talking 10 bushels (an acre) or 20 bushels.”

The state’s soybean crop, meanwhile, could come back and be decent if the state gets rain, he added.

Illinois has had no major problems with disease or insects but some cases of Goss’ wilt have been found in corn in the central part of the state, Nafziger noted. While he’s not expecting it to turn into a big concern, Nafziger said it can be severe in individual fields. (For more details, refer to page 15.)

Many producers are concerned about the hot and dry weather’s impact on crop condition during pollination, but dry conditions in some areas did allow for hay baling and pesticide application, according to the Aug. 1 Illinois Weather & Crops report from the state office of NASS.

NASS added 97 percent of the state’s corn crop had silked, down slightly from 99 percent at the same time last year. The five-year average is 91 percent. Three percent of the crop had dented, down from last year’s 13 percent. The five-year average is 6 percent.
For soybeans, 87 percent of the crop was blooming, down from last year’s 88 percent. The five-year average is 79 percent. Forty-five percent of the crop was setting pods, down 52 percent from last year and up from the five-year average of 41 percent.

The third cutting of alfalfa was under way, with 24 percent completed, down from last year’s 26 percent. The five-year average is 28 percent.
By Michele F. Mihaljevich
Indiana Correspondent