Crops Stressing in Northern Indiana

By Andy Eubank

Near Plymouth, Indiana crops are now getting stressed after a pretty good month of July at the Kyle Stackhouse farm. In late June and July consistent irrigation was aided by some timely rains, but in recent weeks hot and dry conditions are beginning to take a toll on later planted crops.

Despite some issues, Stackhouse thinks yields should be ok on his early planted crops. "We've been to the field days and there's a concern about stalk rot from all the early rain, and I'm not sure that this dry stretch is going to help because of premature, quick dying plants. Stalk integrity may become a real issue this fall. Yields should be ok on those, I think, but when you're planting in the kind of conditions this spring it's really hard to tell. We did have the heat during pollination but it seemed to be not a perfect pollination, but ok pollination."

Beans are a concern but the early beans should be the best beans if there isn’t more rain.

"The last week you can drive through the community and see a lot of beans stressing," Stackhouse told HAT. "We've some rain until now, and now it has just shut off. We just never had a root system really develop, so I think it's really hurting the beans right now. Corn, it may be knocking some test weight off of the early stuff, and it's hard to tell on the later stuff. I haven’t been in too many of those fields to take a look yet."

Harvest might come early this year. Concerned about the stalk rot issue, Stackhouse wants to get the crop out of the field so it doesn’t blow over. More on that is in the HAT From the Fields interview.

Source: Hoosier Ag Today