By: Donovan W. Mann – [email protected]
Humboldt, IA – Growing season is off to a promising start but warm dry weather causes some concerns among experts.
Growing season in Humboldt County and North Central Iowa is off to a good start but faces challenges. A drier planting season provide farmers the opportunity to have a better planting season than years past but now the dry trend continues leading to concerns of soil moister levels. Iowa State Extension and Outreach Humboldt County Agronomist Angela Rieck-Hinz provides details on the growing season to KHBT.
She says that it was a great planting season and the results are showing in the fields. The agronomist says that a lot of the crops are already in the reproductive phase. She says that corn is already starting to “shoot some tassels” and ear shoots. Soy beans are starting to flower and even develop some pods.
The dry weather trend occurring right now has Rieck-Hinz concerned as it starts to show in the crop. She says because farmers went into the season with a relatively full profile of subsoil moister the crop has been good. However the crop is starting to show some stress from the dry weather in the region. According to the Iowa State mezonet numbers for rain fall from April 1 to July 7, the rain fall is down 5.93 inches from the average during that time frame.
The agronomist says that other challenges seem to be at a minimum this growing season. Rieck-Hinz says when it comes to corn there is relatively no insect pressure though she does advice farms to begin scouting for root worm beetle in the next couple of weeks. Disease in corn is also at a minimal and she expects that trend to continue. Soy beans are following the same trend of disease and insect problems. However, the agronomist does say there has been an issue of herbicide off target movement, resulting in weed clusters.
With planting season behind Iowa farmers this season and growing season off to a decent start Rieck-Hinz is optimistic for this season yields. With warm weather continue the agronomist encourages farmers to stay safe while scouting their crop for diseases and pest.