Harvest speeds along with dry conditions across Iowa

Farmers say soybean yields are OK despite very low moisture content, but disease pressure has led to disappointing corn yields in many areas.

With warm and dry weather the past two weeks, harvest is moving along quickly in Iowa. But in many cases, farmers say corn yields are coming in below expectations, as what was thought to be a history-making crop has shrunk due to disease pressure.

Unseasonably warm temper­atures, nearing 90 degrees in some parts of Iowa during the first week of October, are also zapping moisture out of soybeans and causing yield losses due to shrinkage and pod shattering.

"We've had 10 days of temperatures in the 80s, a lot of them in the upper 80s," Buena Vista County Farm Bureau member Richard Marshall said Oct. 2. "I had 13% (moisture) beans on Sept. 22, and when we finished yesterday our late beans were 8.3%."

He said yields on the early harvested soybeans were above average, but the later ones were average or below.

"I've got an auger header, and when they get that dry (and) you start hearing beans hit the windshield, you know there's shatter," he said. Marshall...