The U.S. corn harvest is running four percentage points behind normal and the soybean harvest is three points behind the five-year average for late September, said USDA’s Crop Progress report. Rainy weather slowed the pace of fieldwork and prompted fear of disease losses that would cut into the value of crops, which are forecast to be record-large.
In Iowa, the No. 1 corn state, only four percent of the corn crop has been harvested, one-third the usual figure for the last week of September. Heavy rains drenched northern and northeastern Iowa and south-central and southeastern Minnesota last week. Only 3.6 days of the week were suitable for fieldwork in Iowa and 3.1 days in Minnesota, said USDA. Growers in Minnesota, who harvested none of the corn crop during the week of Sept. 18, harvested three percent of it last week. The U.S. average is 15 percent this fall.
An Iowa State University grain expert, Charles Hurburgh, told the Iowa Agribusiness Radio Network that high moisture throughout the growing season created the threat of mold damage to corn. “You couldn’t write better conditions for fungus growth,” said Hurburgh. “We could really use a hard frost,” to stop fungal growth, he said.
USDA said soybean farmers have harvested 10 percent of the crop nationwide. The figure is four percent in Iowa, compared to the usual nine percent, and 13 percent in Minnesota, six points behind average.