Reports of strong corn and soybean yields continue throughout the Hoosier state. In southwest Indiana, Pioneer field agronomist Dan Emmert says some folks are close to wrapping up corn harvest and are reporting their best farm averages ever.
“That ranges from the highly productive Ragsdale soils that are doing very good, but then also some of the eroded hills and areas like that are way above what their APH is as well. So, across the board, yields have been very good.”
Emmert attributes this to ideal weather conditions throughout much of the summer, what he called “The Goldilocks Zone”.
“We’ve had just enough rain, not too much and not too little, so we had good root growth. We didn’t have a lot of nitrogen loss. Really, very good conditions except for one dry spell going through late August.”
Southern rust is something that they tend to deal with every year in southwest Indiana, but not so much this year.
“I think our hot, cold temperature fluctuations and it not being super humid kind of kept it at bay across most of the area this year,” says Emmert.
Emmert has found some tar spot lesions in some fields, but it developed late enough that they’re not seeing damage from that.
Soybean yields have been surprisingly good as well. Hear more on that in the full HAT interview with Pioneer’s Emmert below: