Last week, the United States Department of Agriculture released information about favorable projections for net farm income to be higher than last year’s income and the second highest since 1973.

However, Scott Shannon, field agronomist for Jefferson’s West Central Coop says that in Greene County, those projections are false.  He believes the estimated numbers to come from other areas in the country who are doing better than Iowa and he points out that Greene County is expected to see a smaller crop this year than last year and the prices for corn and soybeans are lower.

Shannon talks about when he sees the harvest season beginning for corn and soybean and why crops are turning from a green to a brown color.

“A lot of it is drought stress that’s leading to a premature death of the plant.  I think we’ll see some corn come out in September, probably around the 20th.  I think (soy)beans, just because of the late planting date probably still be around that October 1st time frame.”

Part of the blame went to the over abundance of rain in the spring and another part of the blame is to the recent heat wave that’s beginning to kill off corn crops.  Shannon states that between 85-90 degrees, corn and soybean crops can still function, but if there’s excessive heat of over 95-degrees, corn crops will begin to shut down.