Crops are feeling the brunt of the summer, but continuing to grow.

Iowa State University Field Agronomist Mike Witt says that with the weather being a rollercoaster ride in recent weeks, corn and soybeans both have had a rough time. He mentions that with the heat wave that came through, the crops were pushed to the brink of severe moisture stress, but recent rains helped to bring moisture levels up. Witt tells Raccoon Valley Radio about where crops in Guthrie County are at in their life cycle.

“So looking at the maturity of the plants, most across the county are going to be pollinated. There are some that are still a little later planted for corn that are not quite as tasseled and not quite pollinated, but a lot of those are going to be pollinated. We’ll be past the brown silk stage, and we are definitely going to be into kernel and ear development across the area. With soybeans, we have pods forming out there across the soybean fields. So again, we are in that stage where we’re starting to produce the grain and get into some of those grain fill scenarios.”

Witt explains that the main stressor besides weather that he’s seen reports about is insects, saying that soybean gall midge and grasshopper numbers have been increasing. He adds that while there haven’t been many reports of disease, it appears that many farmers are applying fungicide to their fields.