Corn harvest has started to a lot less fan fare than in the past. Several reasons attribute to the lack of a blasting trumpet and angelic voices calling attention to the combines pulling into the fields and collecting the bounty of yellow gold that awaits. The biggest reason is the lack of yellow gold that awaits. Yield estimates are way down from last year but can almost be tracked by planting date.
Early, provided it didn’t drowned out or run of out N, is better and from April you can just subtract off a reasonable amount until you get to the June planting. Then you have all the replant and spot in that is in just about every field causing all kinds of havoc for those with early contracts to fill. For the most part early moisture numbers indicated anywhere from 16% through 32% in the same field. Even those fields that didn’t get a replant or spot show the bottom of the hills and swags are still very very green compared to the flat ground and the hill sides/tops.
Then there is also standability which is about gone no matter what bag you planted. These plants have robbed everything they had from the stalk to try and fill what they could and it shows up quickly in a drive around the country side. Lots of plants have just died and they wont take a big rain of wind event at this point.
Yield estimates for Franklin Co came in at 119 bu/ac. That was a scaled back estimate that I think is still 9 bu to high. Early harvest numbers are coming in at 130-140 bu/ac so far that I am hearing. Like I said that’s the April corn. There isn’t enough April corn to combat the much lower yields of the late May and June corn in my opinion. A couple of farmers I have talked to say they think they might have shelled some of their better corn at this point. They know what awaits them as they move on down the planting calendar.
I hope for all of us I am wrong on my pessimistic prediction. I need all the $7 corn I can get to balance out those cheaper contracts I have!!
