Crazy year for crops

Northeast Iowa - Rainfall this summer has made the crop outlook go up and down, along with the depth of the creeks and rivers.

It was a normal season until the unseasonably wet fall arrived. It kept farmers out of the field, and then the area received one of the earliest snowfalls on record. Although not a lot fell, it still put the brakes on getting into the fields.

According to NRCS (Natural Resources Conservation Service) Watershed Project Coordinator Neil Shaffer, “Now, every week that goes by the crops continue to deteriorate. Some people were still chopping corn for silage this weekend.”

He noted there is about 20 percent of the soybean harvest completed for Howard County. 

That number has not changed in three weeks. Shaffer estimated 15 percent of the corn is harvested, which is up 10 percent from last week, which only had 1.5-2 days suitable for harvest.

Despite the rain, farmers are still reporting good yields. Although they want to get in the fields, soybeans are only about 2-3 weeks behind schedule, which corn being just two weeks late.

It isn’t just the farmers who are affected. With the wet ground, farmers can’t get into the fields, which means fall projects are put on hold for the NRCS. “We have 44 grass waterways to construct this fall, but we can’t get to them if there are crops in the field,” Shaffer explained. The waterways will still get done, they just might have to wait until spring, which pushes back other projects.

“After we have had a big year of rain, it takes two years to catch up on repair and construction of new projects,” he added.

Farmers are comparing this October with the one in 2009, which was also extremely wet. “As soon as November hit, the weather changed, and it turned into an awesome fall,” Shaffer said.