Majority of Iowa’s corn and soybeans have been planted for the year.

According to the latest crop report from the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship, as of last week, about 94-percent of corn and 83-percent of soybeans statewide were planted. Rippey-area farmer Pete Bardole is one of the farmers who has completed their planting season and reviews how that process went.

“It was a quick spring, kind of like last spring. No rain delays, which is kind of a two-edged sword there. We need some rain, and still need some rain, we’ve had a little bit of dampness but not a lot of rain. But when you don’t have any rain delays, you just get started, and you keep going, and you’re done.”

Bardole explains some of the challenges that other weather elements have already made, now entering the growing season.

“(We are) looking for some moisture and looking for some heat. We get one day of heat and then it cools down, and you just don’t get the growing degree days you need. I’ve been spraying corn and there’s a lot of corn that are brown tips and been frosted even. You can see that in the crop.”        

Because of the continued lack of precipitation from last week, the crop report also shows that farmers had an average of 4.8 average days of fieldwork.