A significant amount of rainfall and foggy conditions have slowed down harvesting crops in central Iowa. 

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, about nine-percent of the state’s corn crop has been harvested for grain, along with about 11% of soybeans, ISU Extension Central Iowa Field Agronomist Meaghan Anderson says central Iowa farmers have been slowed down due to the recent moisture but are still a little ahead of the state in harvesting corn and soybeans. Anderson mentions that’s because a majority of farmers in central Iowa have drying facilities for their corn crop which allowed them to start harvesting soybeans earlier. She tells Raccoon Valley Radio that this heat wave passing through the area allows farmers to get a lot accomplished. 

“So we’re hoping for some good conditions to get things harvested. Of course, with the hot temperatures that we have coming, we’ve got pretty good odds of taking our soybeans from too wet to harvest to very, very dry in a pretty short period of time.”

Anderson says that she is receiving questions from people about black tar spots on crops and black dust throughout fields. She explains that those two are not related. 

“That’s actually more of a saprophytic fungi, which would be a fungi that shows up on dead plant material basically to help break it down.”

Anderson says that after another year of the crops dying early due to the dryness and then add in the recent rainfall allows this fungus to proliferate. According to the latest Crop Progress and Condition Report from the Iowa Department of Agriculture, farmers had 5.3 suitable fieldwork days last week. Most of the field has been harvesting corn and soybeans.