Rock Island Today

WKEI AM 1450 recently issued the following announcement.

Michlig Grain crop tour's average was 31.5 bushels an acre fewer than last year and almost 40 acres fewer than the top tour in 2016.

As an uncertain harvest season approaches, many local elevators are wondering how much space to allocate for corn and soybeans.

In many cases, yields are expected to be well below the last couple of years. Some are concerned yields will even fall below trendlines. Fewer acres also will be harvested this fall.

One of the prevent planting epicenters is in Bureau County, where many fields went unplanted in the spring, leaving a much smaller harvest to come.

“We’re looking at Bureau County with 62,000 acres of prevent plant, and most of it would be in our trade zone in the central and western part,” said Donald King, owner of Michlig Grain, which has locations south and east of the Quad Cities.

King anticipates probably 60% normal harvest from what he’s seen over the past couple of years. “Our ability to get grain is going to be pretty limited this year,” he said.

King says there was also a large number of prevent plant acres in Henry County. And throughout his region there are also plenty of acres planted late into wet ground that haven’t performed very well.

“I happen to be sitting in my farm office today, and I see one corn field and everything else is prevent plant as far as I can see,” he said.

Last week’s seventh annual Michlig Grain crop tour covered parts of Bureau, Henry and Stark counties and projected an average yield of 167.9 bushels per acre. Expected yields ranged from a top sample of 244.8 bushels an acre in Stark County to a low of 68.2 in Bureau County. The tour’s average was 31.5 bushels an acre fewer than last year and almost 40 acres fewer than the top tour in 2016.

“A few bad spots and the June corn planting … you’re talking probably 40, 50, up to 60% of the crop has a June planting date on it,” King said on RFD Profit Watch. “I’ve been in business since 1983, I’ve never seen anything like it.

Original source can be found here.