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Hello and welcome to From the Furrow, brought to you by Ever AG Insights. Each week we talk with subject matter experts on news and topics affecting the grain markets. I’m your host, Mike McGinnis, and we get started today on this Tuesday, August 6th, with a review of the markets, the market is actually trying to trade higher. Meanwhile beans lower new crop December right now down slightly at 407 for the corn contract.

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Meanwhile new crop November soybeans down 12.25 at 1028. The September soybeans contract is down 14.25. Wheat right now up five and a half cent for the September contract for the Chicago market. So again, we have mixed markets today. The guest we want to talk about weighed in is the BASF research agronomist in central Wisconsin. And Nick widen, better seed agronomist for BASF covering Minnesota and Wisconsin.

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And you might already figure out that today’s topic is about agronomy. Specifically, we’re trying to answer the question how will the corn and soybean crops out there in the field finish the season? So welcome to both of you. Thanks. Thank you. And we’re going to start with the USDA’s crop progress report that came out on Monday, August 5th, showing 67% of the corn crop in good to excellent condition.

00;01;26;08 – 00;01;50;12

It’s down 1% from the previous week, but still equal to a five year average. And more specifically, the corn soaking and dent stage developments are either equal or above their five year averages, so no real threat there. USDA’s crop progress report showing soybeans good to excellent rating at 68%. That’s actually up 1% from the previous week, and above the five year average of 66%.

00;01;50;12 – 00;02;04;23

The soybeans setting Pod’s rate right now 59%. That’s ahead of a five year average of 56%. So the progress looks good, guys. And really, the first question that I’d like to ask Wade, what are the crop conditions like in your respective area.

00;02;04;24 – 00;02;23;26

So I cover all of Wisconsin. And so this has been by far one of the more challenging years that we’ve seen in Wisconsin. We started out very hopeful because we got an early snowmelt in March, and we even had like an 80 degree day in March, which is, you know, uncommon for us. So if you could plant by the last week in April, that’s usually a pretty good showing.

00;02;23;26 – 00;02;45;03

So most of the crop gets planted around that May 15th time period for the state. Shortly after that. Oh, we had about every three days. We had a rain event until almost the end of June. So there were portions of the state that skated by getting some of that early planting in for, you know, 1 or 2 days, then mattering on just little pockets that had, you know, up to a week or so to actually get, you know, some good planting.

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And even yesterday I had some guys in central Wisconsin that, you know, need feed or weed control. We’re actually still planting corn. So we’ve got to plantings that occurred in April, May, June, July, and now August for this year, you could drive around the Dairy Belt, which is basically from central Wisconsin, all the way over to east central Wisconsin.

00;03;05;29 – 00;03;19;14

That’s where kind of where our clay belt goes from. And you can see pretty much all stages corn. You could still find some V5 corn, and then you can see some passing corn across there. So it matters in what you’re looking at for crop condition. It’s across the board but there’s not very much that looks really good.

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Some of those corn farmers may have to put chains on their combined tires to get through in December and January.

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Well, for corn silage, they’re used to dragging those machines across the fields just to get that crop off. But this year, most of those guys are going to be buying feed most of the corn in that good chunk of the middle part of the state is going to be going towards feed. That’s a true story. If you took the heart of that dairy belt, about 25% was prevent plant and you go just do south of that into the Plainfield area, which would be like where we start some of our central sand or potato guys you’re looking at for some of the row crop portions, up to about 45% to prevent plant.

00;03;55;25 – 00;04;08;25

So some of those guys, they made the right decision of not planting that crop, as now with everything taking as low as it is, they’ll actually be able to buy some of that feed, which is uncommon for those cows, but it’s going to be rough, like it’s going to be across the board this year.

00;04;08;26 – 00;04;11;24

Well, Nick, how about your area? What are the crop conditions like there?

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It’s definitely as I go out west across Minnesota there is still a lot of variability, a lot of planning dates where guys were able to get in. I’d say kind of mid to late April. A lot of that is looking pretty good because those crops were able to kind of get established before heavy rains set in like way that I already mentioned across May into early June.

00;04;30;10 – 00;04;36;03

Everybody was just trying to get anything they could in, and a lot of that stuff has been either replanted or just continue to struggle.

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So agronomic, then what needs to happen for those crops to get across the finish line?

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So it is a lot of uneven canopy across soybeans. Disease control has been a struggle. I think looking forward it is worth trying to protect the crop. We’ve getting some aphids coming in from the north. So northwestern Nathan, they’ve already come down as far as Swift County and some in Chippewa. So making sure that those aren’t going to rob whatever you do have out there.

00;04;56;29 – 00;05;10;13

Haven’t seen a ton yet, but we do have the conditions prime for white melon seeds. Those are our typical August diseases. So definitely want to keep scouting for those as we get the canopies formed. I do think what more it’s going to continue to pop up across a lot of these areas.

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I was also interested about the corn crop, this year’s corn crop, by the way. I did see some crop dusters flying across the state of Iowa last week as I was making my way through the eastern part of the Corn Belt and the eastern part of Iowa. But for corn, is it possible that this year’s corn crop could see higher test weights and the soybean crop produce more pods, even maybe bigger beans, because of the ideal weather conditions that the crop has had.

00;05;33;24 – 00;05;55;04

At least for Wisconsin, they’ll be pockets that will have, you know, some fantastic yields off of it. Like, I was looking at some fields down in southeast Wisconsin, you know, where they’re approaching, you know, 21 nodes on the soybean plants already. They got those plants, you know, somewhere in early April, planted. And those roots were able to expand out before, you know, the fine sediments kind of filtered in and squished those roots or lost some of those nutrients.

00;05;55;04 – 00;06;12;09

A lot of these guys that were squeezing the stuff in in between rains, you know, those wet plantings, those roots are going to be severely damaged. They’re not going to expand out properly. You’re not going to have, you know, extension going into them for depth wise just because it was so wet. You know, the crops are growing. But we lost a lot of our nutrients.

00;06;12;09 – 00;06;35;02

We moved a lot of nutrients. So volatility, you know, potassium, movement with soil, not that it’s going into the air, but just from movement of soil. We see a lot of potassium deficiency. We see a lot of corn that’s showing nitrogen deficiency just because they lost so much. And if you couldn’t get back into the field to throw it out, you know, a buggy thrown out, you know, dry granule, urea or, you know, out there inside dress because you’re going to run up your fields.

00;06;35;02 – 00;06;48;26

They didn’t get refilled. So there’s a lot of stuff that’s starting to burn up. We are seeing the incidence of tire spots starting to come in, and that’s starting to expand on the western side along the Mississippi. This is the first time in about eight years that we’ve seen good aphid numbers across the state. They’re expanding in central Wisconsin too.

00;06;48;26 – 00;07;05;18

So that could just be representative of, you know, how damaged some of this crap is because they love, you know, nice luscious top leaves, but they also like damaged plants. So this crop gets taller, you know, once a corn plant tassels, you know, you’re like, oh, that field looks perfectly fine. And then you walk in and your cobs, you know, aren’t on the seventh.

00;07;05;18 – 00;07;14;12

No, they’re on like the fourth or fifth note. That would be the telltale sign of what you’re going to be looking at in your field, because once it gets tall, like it all looks fine, but it’s probably not going to be.

00;07;14;12 – 00;07;31;29

That was one of my questions when I did make that drive last week. That’s exactly what I was noticing from the road and going, you know, 65, 70 mile an hour down the interstate. These crops look really good from the outside. But, Nick, could you address that? I mean, when you go into some of these fields now, what are they looking like, ten rows in or inside the crop?

00;07;32;00 – 00;07;50;20

Yep. No. And I think by and large, a lot of our seed number is set for for beans I’m seeing them a little bit low. So again you’re talking about we do have good conditions. Now we can as we kind of transition the grain fill we can certainly get larger seeds that can compensate. But if the seed number hasn’t been set very strong there’s less opportunities to increase that number.

00;07;50;20 – 00;08;03;10

I really see as I go into the fields, you really see where the water is. Any area with good drainage, the slopes, those are doing a lot better for us. It’s the low areas that are holding on to that moisture or we see either drowned out or just struggling plants.

00;08;03;10 – 00;08;19;25

I have two more questions. One is this year’s crop wasn’t planted in two weeks, and we just confirmed that hasn’t been planted in 2 or 3 months, apparently. But how will this help the pipeline when harvest really kicks in and farmers start to bring in what could be the third largest corn crop in the second largest soybean crop?

00;08;19;25 – 00;08;30;24

Yeah, I think it’s going to be crazy if it really is going to be that large as a crop, it’s going to be some other states that are going to be pulling the load off of it. Because I know for a fact that the dairy guys are going to be looking for as much corn as they can get their hands on.

00;08;30;24 – 00;08;46;11

So a lot of this stuff is going to get chopped, probably in like mid to late September monitoring and what kind of conditions we get. You know, it could stretch out into October. So a lot of this stuff is going to just get chopped early, especially for the stuff that’s just coming into testing now or that’s, you know, a month away from testing if it ever gets to testing.

00;08;46;11 – 00;09;02;20

But if you’re looking at, you know, the good looking stuff and there’s a portion in southeast Wisconsin, there’s a portion in southwest Wisconsin, those areas, obviously, they’re going to be earlier planted beans. So they’re probably all going to go up at the same time. But you’re probably going to see a lot of dairy guys taking as much corn in as they can.

00;09;02;20 – 00;09;04;06

If these prices stay as low as they are.

00;09;04;08 – 00;09;09;12

And how about in Minnesota? Nick, what are you hearing there as far as the grain movement load that could happen.

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Having a wider window definitely can help. I think we do see a lot of on farm storage. A lot of guys can really put away their bushels locally and then control when that grain, flip the market or hit the market. So having a wider harvest range can certainly help with that movement, but at least yeah, for most of my area I’m not expecting the bumper crop.

00;09;26;03 – 00;09;30;21

I do know as you get into the estates they are seeing a better crop that can get moved through their rivers pretty quickly.

00;09;30;21 – 00;09;41;08

Well, you did see, southwest Minnesota have the flooded condition that northwest Iowa had and southeast South Dakota, northeast Nebraska right. Now, how widespread is that in southwest Minnesota?

00;09;41;11 – 00;09;58;02

Yeah, there was ten inches over a weekend. I think it was. And that was definitely hard. And that was not just the one time that was ten inches over the course of an already wet year. Hasn’t really been dry since. So I think a lot of those areas are again going to be under reducing. But again, there are other areas of the Midwest that will certainly be compensating.

00;09;58;02 – 00;10;08;12

So last year there were reports that even cornfields that didn’t receive adequate rain still had good yields. Does that surprise you? And what does that tell us about the seeds being sown today?

00;10;08;12 – 00;10;28;01

This from the Eden genetics point of view, there’s obviously just been long term investment in these genetics. And I think we really do see the fruit of that in the industry, the ability to handle diverse conditions. So either not enough or too much rain. The crop is overall much more stable than it has been. And also I think there’s a perception miss, you know, dry conditions don’t look good.

00;10;28;01 – 00;10;37;25

You know, your yard looks dry and things might look tough, but a lot of plants can still produce. It’s honestly it’s when things are too wet you get more zeros in the field when they drowned out.

00;10;37;27 – 00;11;07;18

Yeah. Saturated ground is tough to get away from. I could see that. You know, the drought conditions at the crop, you know, genetics could help you along with these flooded conditions. Once those roots are fully saturated, you know, the inability to release CO2 through those roots, like you ain’t growing during that time period and that supersaturated all those finds from the soil washing into that affects root development, elongation even like the disbursement of nutrients, you know, throughout that soil profile like that really makes a big difference if you ain’t dumping more on there at the right times, that crop just ain’t going to see it.

00;11;07;18 – 00;11;32;16

I just brought something up off a weather dag gov here like that Elgin Rochester area in Minnesota for June through July. They had 19in you know. So usually our June is about four inches of precipitation per month you know across Wisconsin and Minnesota. So 4 to 5 you’re looking at 20in. But if you go back for like April May June, July just for like the state of Wisconsin, if you take Madison, Wisconsin, for a center part of it, we’ve had double the amount of rainfall for every month.

00;11;32;16 – 00;11;50;23

And that’s just for the Madison area. So there’s going to be wetter pockets than that. So that’s super saturated ground. I think it’s harder to get by with bumper crops than it is for dry. And I think we learned that in 2012, which would have been our last big drought. There is portions of the state that, you know, if you got just a little bit of moisture going through there, those guys had bumper crops.

00;11;50;23 – 00;11;58;07

And then some of these guys were, you know, back down in like the 50s, 60s for corn, but in this saturated ground, like there’s going to be a lot of heartache.

00;11;58;08 – 00;12;05;17

My final segment is the so what segment. That’s the one that we talked about. What can producers and processors take from our discussion today? And start with you, Nick.

00;12;05;17 – 00;12;25;06

Yeah, I guess the overall thing I always say is never give up on a crop. You only have so many seasons and it’s never worth walking away. So I’m a huge proponent to keep scouting as these late season diseases are coming up. Not all of them are beyond the point of action. So some diseases, these corn diseases that certainly rob Neil from the top down, making sure you’re scouting and knowing to get those crops protected.

00;12;25;09 – 00;12;35;26

Yes. And white mold for soybeans. We’re kind of past the point of any real control, but it is still worth kind of knowing where they come in, keeping good records and influencing your decisions moving forward.

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Wade, how about you?

00;12;37;04 – 00;12;55;18

So not for this year, but for last year we had guys in the south central Wisconsin that planted it right after Mother’s Day, and then they didn’t receive rainfall for six weeks. So those beans didn’t come out of the ground until, you know, sometime in July. And we were still able to get around 45 bushels off of those soybean crops, which, you know, for most part of the state.

00;12;55;18 – 00;13;10;23

I think our average is around somewhere in the 50s. So that wasn’t too bad. And so it’ll be interesting to see what some of these crops that were planted super late for beans and for corn actually do, because usually we saw by the 4th of July, if you planted anything after that, it was just for chomping at and it usually didn’t make it to tassel.

00;13;10;23 – 00;13;26;10

It’ll be interesting to see what some of these super late ones actually do in the field. This is just one of those unique years that you’re like, well, it’s a good learning experience for all of us to remember what’s too late and what’s not too late, you know, because obviously everybody’s shooting for like for Wisconsin, that May 15th is what they’re shooting for.

00;13;26;10 – 00;13;48;26

And when you miss it by a month and it’s June 15th, you’re like, how about another 2 or 3 weeks of it? So this will be a good learning experience off it. And even for planting wise for conditions of just throwing the crop in. We saw a lot of unique issues with emergence on, you know, flooded fields or when they were planted wet or even when the cotyledon was coming out of the ground, and how finely tilled the ground was on some of those emergent issues.

00;13;48;26 – 00;14;04;06

And so we’ve got some that the cotyledon got stuck. And, you know, they ended up just throwing a branch. That is the thing that came up because the cotyledon literally grew into the dirt. And so off the cotyledon you throw a branch. And that’s what was the main portion of the plant coming up. And so that wasn’t just a few fields.

00;14;04;06 – 00;14;23;17

That was a good chunk of these fields. And so some of these conditions of tillage practices and of planting conditions was an opportunity to learn something this year so that we don’t make those same mistakes again. But it’s worthwhile walking through a bunch of these fields and remembering and what it looked like at the time of planting. That would be my biggest advice for this year because we learned a ton of stuff.

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There’s all sorts of crazy stuff that happened out in the fields this year.

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Yeah, those darn kind of liens, I tell you, you agronomist, have some of the funnest words to say.

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Those sorts of crazy ones, everybody. Just like the five other words.

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But this has been a very informative discussion. Thanks to both of you, actually, for, joining us today.

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You’re very welcome. Thanks, Mike.

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Yeah, thanks for having us.

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Wade Omega and the BASF research agronomist in central Wisconsin. And Nick widen, better the seed agronomist for BASF covering Minnesota and Wisconsin. Thanks to both of them for joining us today. And thank you. If you’ve enjoyed listening to From the Furrow, be sure to tell a friend or to and subscribe to us wherever you listen to your podcast.

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