Troy Severson's corn and soybean crops in Bondurant, Iowa, are a mixed bag so far. He got them in the ground around mid-April, and since then, the corn crop is looking "really great" but the soybeans are slightly underperforming.
"We've been short of heat so far this year — especially these soybeans, they're not as tall as they usually are,” he says, bending down to study a soybean plant in a field about a stone’s throw from his family’s bucolic white farmhouse. He attributes their slow start to this year’s weather. Polk County hasn’t had an ideal spring closeout.
"We haven't been that wet right here, but there are places within a few miles of here that have been wet enough that they couldn't get [crops] in,” he says.
Severson raises corn and soybeans in a 50-50 split, and alfalfa and hay across about 700 acres, leaving enough grass to support cattle grazing.
“Soybeans like dry feet and warm weather, and it's been cool and damp,” he says, noting the hay crop isn’t as good this season, either.
"Last year, at the first cutting of hay, we baled 350 more big square bales than we did this spring,” he says,
The biggest threat to his corn is deer. Historically, Severson has implemented an age-old but not very effective wildlife management strategy.
“We just cussed the deer,” he says. This season, Severson is trying something experimental on a dedicated cornfield he found on a postcard: a deer repellent made from dried blood.
“It doesn't hurt them. When they come along and smell it, they think, ‘oh, I don't want to walk in there,’” he says. So far, it has been [effective]. I've never done it before.”
Looking ahead, Severson anticipates a normal harvest, although he’ll know better in another month or so.
"I expect at this point that it'll be good. As far as early or late, the verdict's out on that,” he says.