A central Iowa farmer says frequent rains created some challenging conditions early in the growing season.
Corey Hillebo grows corn and soybeans near Polk City…
“We’ve just had enough moisture to stay a little bit damp and a little bit challenging to get all our post spraying done. We’ve got one field of bean post left as of June 22nd. Hopefully we’ll get that done this week.”
He tells Brownfield rainfall totals have been above average.
“We have some areas where corn has gotten a little yellow, a little ponding, but nothing severe.”
Hillebo says the wet conditions also led to some soil crusting issues.
“Anyone that planted in my area around that April 20-23 timeframe, soybeans struggled to come out of the ground. We saw stands drop by 50% in some cases.”
The latest U.S. Drought Monitor shows the majority of central Iowa has been removed from drought status.
