USDA’s latest statewide survey shows as of Nov. 12, Iowa farmers have 97% of this fall’s soybean crop in the bin and corn harvest is 85% complete.

Harlan Anderson finally finished harvesting his 2017 soybeans; he’s still working on corn. Farming in Jones County in eastern Iowa, he noted on Nov. 13 that “Wednesday, Nov. 8, was the first day we saw sunshine from start to finish in nearly two weeks. There aren’t many soybeans left to harvest in our area of the state. Our corn yields and soybean yields are good this year, better than expected. Corn is coming out of the field between 17% and 25% moisture content.”

Iowa corn harvest continues to make progress
“A mostly dry week in Iowa allowed for good progress on the harvest, with 85% of corn and 97% of beans now harvested. The corn harvest is catching up, and is now only one week behind the five-year average,” says Mike Naig, Iowa deputy secretary of agriculture.

Nationally, corn harvest advanced 13% last week, bringing the 2017 harvest to 83% complete. Soybean harvest for the U.S. is 93% complete, which is close to the five-year average. Corn harvest has been behind the five-year average all season and is still running 8% behind.

The complete weekly crop and weather report is available on the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship’s website IowaAgriculture.gov or on USDA’s site nass.usda.gov/ia. The report summary follows.

Summary of Iowa crop conditions
Limited precipitation during the week ending Nov. 12 allowed an average of 6 days suitable for fieldwork statewide, according to USDA’s National Ag Statistics Service. Harvest has begun to wind down as many Iowa farmers were able to work in their fields throughout the week. Additional fieldwork activities this past week included baling corn stalks, tillage, applying fertilizers and manure, tiling, seeding CRP ground, and hauling grain.

Topsoil moisture is rated 3% very short, 10% short, 83% adequate and 4% surplus. Subsoil moisture is rated 6% very short, 17% short, 74% adequate and 3% surplus. As of Nov. 12 for Iowa, 85% of the corn for grain crop has been harvested, one week behind last year and the five-year average.

Moisture content of corn being harvested for grain averaged 17%. Only northwest and north-central Iowa have 90% or more of their corn for grain crop harvested. Iowa’s soybean crop is now 97% harvested, equal to last year but five days behind average.

Livestock conditions are reported as normal with no concerns. There are also reports of cattle grazing in recently harvested cornfields with little hay being fed.

Weather summary for Iowa
Harry Hillaker, state climatologist, Iowa Department of Agriculture & Land Stewardship, provides the following summary for the week ended Nov. 12.

It was an unseasonably cold and mostly dry week across Iowa. Temperatures were well below normal throughout the week with some moderation finally arriving over the weekend. Daytime high temperatures were only in the low to mid-20s over parts of northern Iowa on Nov. 9-10. Only small portions of southeast Iowa on Nov. 5 and extreme western Iowa on Nov. 8 reached 50 degrees during the week. Temperature extremes varied from highs of 54 degrees at Centerville, Iowa City and Washington on Nov. 5, while Swea City recorded a Nov. 10 morning low of 6 degrees. 

Temps 8.7 degrees below normal
Temperatures for the week as a whole for Iowa averaged 8.7 degrees below normal. 

The only measureable precipitation for the week came Nov. 11 at night into the morning of Nov. 12 over the southeast two-thirds of the state, including a short-lived dusting of snow over extreme eastern areas the morning of Nov. 12.

Precipitation totals varied from none over much of the northwest one-third of Iowa to 0.65 inch just southwest of Iowa City. The statewide average precipitation was 0.14 inch, while normal for the week is 0.50 inch.