In mid-August, the corn and soybeans that Dallas Tomlinson raises with family near Traer in east-central Iowa are in good shape.
“Everything’s holding up pretty well,” Tomlinson said when we caught up with him at a BASF field day near Story City, Iowa. “We’ve had a lot of moisture in the last few weeks, so that could actually turn off for a little while.”
So far, no insect issues have emerged in the corn. “There’s some southern rust that’s starting to show up,” he says. “But we’ve had our fungicide on, and it’s holding really well.”
Some bacterial diseases for which fungicides are not effective — including bacterial leaf streak and Goss’s wilt — are surfacing in a few hybrids.
Still, the corn is looking good overall. Despite the wet weather, Tomlinson’s nitrogen is holding in corn.
“We use stabilizers pretty regularly, so things are holding up well,” he says.
Soybeans
Soybeans also continue to look good, Tomlinson says. Japanese beetle pressure is less than in previous years.
Disease pressure also has been light, with fungicides applied and holding. However, chlorotic leaves are starting to surface in soybean plants in some fields, which may be due to either sudden death syndrome or brown stem rot, Tomlinson says.
Harvest outlook
Tomlinson expects harvest to proceed normally.
“You always think when you get planted early that it’s going to be ready early [for harvest], but there's always some kind of weather event that that evens the scale a little,” he says. “We got it in at a really good time, but then we had a stretch of really cool weather, and I think that slowed the crop down. So, I look for harvest to begin about normal [time].”