East Central Indiana Crops Great but Time for Rain is Near

Wicker July update

Jim Wicker-1Indiana crop ratings this week lead the pack of the major production states and one of those counties where corn and soybeans are progressing nicely is Henry. Jim Wicker at New Lisbon reported a good start to the crops in May and there has been great progress since.

“Here in Henry County or at least in southern Henry County crop conditions are good to excellent. Soybeans are progressing nicely. It’s been a good year and things are really growing well. We’ve got soybeans starting to flower. Corn is starting to come into pollen shed. We could use a rain but all in all we’re in pretty good shape here.”

He says there isn’t a dire need for rain yet but it has been awhile since the last precipitation.

“It’s amazing how fast things change,” he explained. “We had about 16 straight days from June 20th to July 4th or 5th where we had a shower every day. That was very good growing conditions for the crops but we’ve now gone 10, 11, 12 days without a lot of measurable rainfall and with temperatures soaring into the 90’s. We’re not showing plant stress yet, but we’re probably nearing that.”

And development has also been good because there hasn’t been any unusual or excessive pest pressure other than, “a few more weeds in the soybeans because of all the rain and we just take an extra pass to clean it up with some Roundup a few times. Other than that things look pretty good. We have experienced some leafhoppers in second cutting alfalfa which we just have finally been able to start in the last few days.”

Senior Market Analyst Arlan Suderman at Water Street Solutions told HAT Tuesday that Indiana is the bright spot. Corn is firing in the Western Corn Belt states of Kansas, Nebraska, and most recently Iowa.

“It’s really critical that they get this rain in the 6-10 day period but the forecasts have pulled dryer for the area for that period. So we could see some losses start to mount.”

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