Heat, dry weather cause bad turn for South Dakota crops

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Heat, dry weather cause bad turn for South Dakota crops

Dry 100-degree heat has put a late season damper on crop yields in some areas. Pioneer agronomist Curt Hoffbeck in southeastern South Dakota tells Brownfield potentially amazing yields the first half of the growing season have been cut because of too little rain.

“We’re going to be looking at a lot of 185 to 210 bushel corn,” said Hoffbeck Tuesday, “and then those realty tough fields are going to maybe struggle to hit 140, 150 or 160.”

Hoffbeck says the heat and dry weather have moved up maturity and harvest to earlier than normal.

“You can definitely see the fields that have a lighter soil texture, a lower water holding capacity, and/or those that ran out of nitrogen,” said Hoffbeck, who is based in Beresford, South Dakota. “They’re crashing, in fact, silage chopping has started, oh, basically seven to ten days ahead of normal because of that.”

Hoffbeck shares his customers’ disappointment in the unfortunate turn, but putting it in perspective, he says it could be worse.

“We just dealt with a crop last year where we had too much rain and couldn’t get planted, right? So I guess, at least we got a crop to look at and a decent enough crop to harvest,” he said, adding, “We can’t complain about that.”

AUDIO: Curt Hoffbeck

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