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Wisconsin corn researcher says crop looks better up north
A corn researcher says the northern corn belt is having a much better 2020 growing season than the southern corn belt.
Joe Lauer with the University of Wisconsin tell Brownfield in his state, the crop has had a good year weather-wise compared to some areas in the southern and eastern corn belt. “Illinois, Ohio, Indiana, those areas there are a little bit dry over there, but we’re experiencing pretty good corn conditions right here, right now.”
And, he says the recent rains in the upper Midwest have been welcome. “Today’s one of those six or seven bushel days where every acre that you’ve got out there is accumulating grain yield at the rate of about six or seven bushels per day.”
In Wisconsin, there’s rain forecast for five of the next seven days, and Lauer says that’s okay in the right amounts. “During grain filling period, ideally, you’d like to have an inch of rain a week. The crop uses about a third of an inch a day, so it’s relying on the little bit of soil reserves as well as any little bit of rainfall that had come.”
Lauer says there is still a long way to go before harvest, so anything can happen. He says farmers growing corn for silage are probably going to be harvesting earlier this year because of the early planting and decent weather.
