Corn growers prepare for ‘interesting’ harvest
New Prague farmer Greg Entinger said he’s unsure what his corn yields will be like this year, given uneven plant emergence and stress from the hot, dry conditions.
To the east in Pine County, Ogilvie farmer Randy Schroeder is also in a wait-and-see mode with his corn crop. He said the corn looks good and that recent rains have “given us a chance” but that kernels could be shallow.
“There’s a lot of kernels in there, but test weight could be light,” he said.
Across Minnesota, corn farmers are hoping their 2023 crop could be decent but know that the tough conditions might have taken a toll. Still, they’re optimistic that rain this month will help with grain fill and allow the crop to rebound.
“It’s going to be a very interesting corn harvest” and an interesting year, said Entinger, who is president of the Le Sueur/Scott County Corn & Soybean Growers Association. “It’s unpredictable right now.”
After this year’s snowy winter, some farmers were dealing with wet conditions in their fields this spring, said Kenny Blumenfeld, senior climatologist with the Minnesota State Climate Office. But that changed quickly with the rapid onset of the drought.
Except for a pocket south of the Minnesota River that received heavy rains in mid-May and July, the state has been dry, Blumenfeld said. Even those areas have experienced dry conditions, Blumenfeld noted.
Saint James farmer Matt Wolle was among those who contended with both the deluge of early rain and dry conditions. He said he got 7 inches of rain on May 11 and had to replant about 25% of his corn. Throughout July, his fields got just 9/10th of an inch of rain, which meant that some of his crops burned up.
Wolle said there are still spots in his fields where the crop looks good, but there are also spots where yields will be around 140 bushels per acre. “There’s no uniformity across the fields, so it’s impossible to do a few yield checks,” he added.
Nearby, Morgan farmer Jeff Sorenson said conditions have varied between the eastern half and the western half of Redwood County. The western part of the county has been drier during the growing season, while the eastern half of the county was inundated with rain in mid-May, forcing farmers to replant their corn crop.
Sorenson, who chairs the Redwood County Corn & Soybean Growers Association, said the area received 2-3 inches of rain after Farmfest. He said soybeans have turned around but that corn is still struggling from the heavy rains early in the season. “Thank goodness we got that rain 10 days ago,” he said. “The corn was tough before that. The rain has kind of maintained our yields. We’re not going forward, (but) we’re not going backwards either.”
Entinger, the New Prague farmer, said he doesn’t expect to see cobs with 20 or 22 rows of kernels on them like in past years. While corn in his fields is “definitely surviving,” he said the crop is shriveled up two miles north of him.
He said that rain has been spotty in his fields and nonexistent two miles to his north; normally, rain is more consistent across his cropland.
Owatonna farmer Matt Heers, who chairs the Steele County Corn & Soybean Growers Association, said the crops in his area are looking pretty good. He said there hasn’t been an extreme amount of drought stress, though his crops could “definitely use some rain.”
“Harvest may be a little earlier if it stays hot and we don’t get any more rain,” he said.
According to the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS), Minnesota’s corn production is forecast at 1.46 billion bushels, which would be a slight increase from 2022. NASS projects the average bushels per acre to be 183, down 12 from last year.
Rebounding crop
During an Aug. 16 “Field Notes” webinar, University of Minnesota Extension agronomist Jeff Coulter said Minnesota’s corn crop is looking better but that conditions vary around the state.
Given the warm, dry conditions during corn pollination, some ears saw kernel abortion, Coulter said. He said that while a lot of the crop might look good from the road, if you pull back husks, you might see a lot of missing kernels at the tips of ears.
Even though corn is past the critical pollination stage and kernel numbers are set, Coulter said any rain during the remainder of the growing season would be helpful. He said temperatures in the low 80s during the day and cooler temperatures at night would be ideal for the crop at this point.
Blumenfeld said he expects August to remain warm. But while farmers prepare for harvest and look ahead to the 2024 growing season, he said one thing is certain.
“All the droughts we’ve had so far have ended,” he said. “We know it’s coming. We just don’t know when. I think everyone’s anxious to see this current dry period end.”
