The warm days and nights have been beneficial to moving crops along in their development. 

Dallas County Extension Field Agronomist Meaghan Anderson says that the corn crop condition in the county is rated above the 60-percent mark for good to excellent. Anderson says she is seeing a lot of the corn crop begin or already hit the tasseling stage which is an important time when determining final yields. 

“The ability of that tassel to produce pollen that’s going to pollinate the silks and create those nice big ears that we like to see that can then be filled for yield. This is a critical time for that, and so we really would like to have ideal conditions right now, water stress and no heat stress during this time to allow that to work the best.”

Anderson says that all corn planted in May will reach the tasseling stage by early next week. She mentions that soybeans have reached the flowering stage and that will continue for well over a month where flowers will pod and seed develop. She tells Raccoon Valley Radio that the state average soybean conditions are rated 53-percent good to excellent, but Dallas County’s crops look better than that. 

“Seems like they’re slow to get going in the growing season. And then once we reach the early reproductive stages, it seems like they do a really nice job of filling in. So soybean fields are starting to look really excellent and so hopefully that IDC( Iron Deficiency Chlorosis), the visual appearance of that will go away soon and then there’ll be much more even green color through the field.”

According to the latest Crop Progress and Condition Report from the Iowa Department of Agriculture, farmers had 5.1 suitable fieldwork days last week. Most of the field has been cutting hay and spraying crops.