Wide-ranging yields expected from southeastern Minnesota corn and soybeans – Agweek

ROCHESTER, Minn. — Pulling an ear from a field of corn near the Rochester airport, Joel Johanningmeier, advanced yield specialist for Ag Partners in Stewartville, said it's not too early to start predicting yields.

“It’s going to be all over the board,” he said on the afternoon of Aug. 20. “We've got some really great yields that are coming up here, and then we've got some drowned out areas.”

Johanningmeier said early stress due to heavy rains a month or so after planting will have an impact on crops across the region.

“I think we're going to be surprised by some of the good areas and disappointed by some of the bad areas,” he said.

He said the August weather has been “really helpful” to getting the crops to the finish line.

“Especially the corn crop,” he said.

Johanningmeier said a lot of farmers got into the fields to plant early in the region, with most of them finished planting both corn and soybeans by mid-May.

“Some of them started kind of mid-April, and even some of them were finished up by the end of April,” he said.

The region saw a lot of rain shortly after planting, he said.

“The heaviest amount of rain fell in that late May through June timeframe,” Johanningmeier said. “That held us out a little bit.”

Johanningmeier said a lot of the rain fell when farmers were controlling weeds and putting on planned nitrogen applications.

“It was a little bit challenging this year, and something totally different than what it was last year, when it was so dry,” he said.

He said the region was on the opposite end of the spectrum than it was in 2023, when the area was under a historic drought.

Maturity wise, Johanningmeier said the corn was “right on par” going from the milk stage to the beginning of the dent stage in late August.

“We should finish this corn and soybean crop off in a timely fashion this year,” he said. “The stress through the growing season had to do with kind of those moisture levels, but from a maturity perspective, I think we're right on par.”

He said soybeans in southeastern Minnesota, which are in the R4 to R5 growth stage, looked “pretty good.”

“We’ve had some nice August rains that helped fill out the pods,” he said. “Hopefully to get that top-end yield out of some of these as they finish filling.”

Johanningmeier said the most common disease in the region found in corn this season has been tar spot.

“It held pretty well, low to moderate, where we were hot spot two years ago in this area with our corn, and we're able to get fungicide on to help mitigate that,” he said of tar spot. “Further to the north, in the Goodhue, Red Wing area, that seems to be more of the hot spot this year.”

For soybean disease, Johanningmeier said the most common disease farmers in the region are seeing is white mold.

“We're really going to start to see that show up here next week or so,” he said of white mold.