Corn Reports on Indiana Counties

Indiana has been bearing the brunt of the drought hitting the Midwest portion of the United States, with reports from a number of counties coming in as to how bad it has gotten.

The Indiana counties surveyed by the MDA EarthSat July Crop Tour were were Putnam, Hendricks, Parke and Vermillion.

After touring fields in each county, it was found that the average was only 56.3 bushels an acre, plummeting from the 143.4 bushels an acre last year the farmers in those counties produced.

According to the USDA, the corn crop in Indiana has only 7 percent of it rated as good to excellent, dropping a percentage point from last week.

To show how bad some of these counties are, Parke County had better looking corn than the rest, and is expected to produce about 121 bushels an acre. That means Putnam, Hendricks and Vermillion counties will, on average, fall another 20 bushels an acre below the 56.3 bushels averaged out for all four counties.

Putnam County may be in the worse shape of all the counties, with the members of the MDA EarthSat July Crop Tour saying most of it will probably go unharvested because of the damage.

All of this is the best case scenario. Who knows where it'll all end if the rains don't come.

Illinois, Indiana Corn Continues to Burn

While the Midwest in general is getting hammered by the drought, which continues to devastate the corn crop, Illinois and Indiana are getting hit the worst of all the corn-producing states, with no relief in sight at this time as far as rain coming any time soon.

A little over 1 percent of the crop rating drops daily for every day it doesn't rain in the region.

The USDA gave a dismal report today where it dropped its corn yield estimates by 20 bushels an acre, down to 146 bushels. That was a much larger downward revisement than anticipated, causing the price of corn to jump over 3 percent in morning trading.

As for the corn supply, the USDA lowered its projections by 698 bushels over June's estimates, falling to 1.2 billion bushels at the end of 2012.

That shows how devastatingly quick the numbers are falling, and each day causes some damage to the corn crop in a way rain won't help it recover.

Top Corn States' Corn Condition Getting Worse

The most recent U.S. Department of Agriculture report says that the top 18 corn producing states in the nation had the quality of the corn drop, as the drought continues to hammer the Midwest.

According to the USDA report, 30 percent of the corn crop in the top corn states is now considered to be in poor or very poor condition. That's an 8 percent drop since just a week ago, when it stood at 22 percent.

Expert have said there is only about a ten day to two week period left where significant rains must come in order to salvage the corn. Already in some areas it's too late for the crop, even if it was to rain hard.

The states being hardest hit at this time are Illinois and Indiana, with Indiana having 61 percent of its crop rated poor or very poor. Last week 50 percent of Indiana corn had the same rating.

Illinois, which is second only to Iowa in corn production, dropped from 33 percent last week to 48 percent this week as to the percentage of the corn crop being rated poor or very poor.

For the entire nation, the amount of corn rated good to excellent fell from 40 percent this week, down from 48 percent last week.

It appears for every day the drought continues, a little more than 1 percent is added to the poor or very poor rating and subtracted from the good to excellent rating.

While the amount of corn planted this year has given some leeway to the industry, a couple of more weeks of this weather will cut deeply into the earlier corn yield projections, which have already fallen quite a bit for the year.

Iowa Corn Crop Weakening

With corn it doesn't take long for the health of the crop to change drastically, as the Iowa corn crop, after looking robust just about a weak ago, has started to falter as the ongoing drought starts to effect the crop much more than it had prior to this week.

Not too long ago the Iowa corn crop for 2012 was rated approximately 15 below 2011, but were considered in far better shape than the states surrounding it, according to a report from the USDA.

The USDA gave Iowa a 68 percent good-to-excellent rating. Illinois, the No. 2 producer behind Iowa, fell to 37 percent good to excellent. For other states, their good-to-excellent ratings were this: Indiana, 27 percent; Missouri, 34 percent; and Ohio, 49 percent.

While the other states will continue to falter, along with Iowa, the largest producer of corn and soybeans in the nation will be sure to have its good-to-excellent rating downwardly adjusted from its most recent levels when the next report from the USDA is released on Monday.

The areas of Iowa that are worsening are the upper northwest region of the state, as well as the eastern area.

Indiana Corn Damage Irreversible

According to corn specialist Bob Nielsen of Purdue University, the damage already done to the corn in the state is "irreversible."

He said, "A break in the drought and heat for the remainder of the
season would certainly minimize further deterioration of the
corn crop but would not result in recovery to anywhere close to
normal yields."

In what was expected to be one of the biggest corn crop in U.S. history, as well as in many states in the nation, has now become a potential victim of the worst drought in the Midwest since 1988.

This is the same story across the Midwest, where new weather forecasts, if accurate, say it could be another couple of weeks before significant rains come.

On the CBoT December corn jumped 34 cents, or 5 percent, to $7.08-1/2 a bushel. It rose another 5 percent on the day, adding to the approximate 25 percent corn prices have risen over the last two weeks.

Indiana's Corn Crop Susceptible to Western Bean Cutworm

Indiana and other corn farmers who thought that a new insect threat would be slowed by this winter's freezing temperatures may be disappointed, says Christian Krupke, a Purdue University Extension entomologist.

The western bean cutworm (WBC) is likely to emerge from winter in numbers capable of exacting a toll on Indiana's corn crop this summer, says Krupke.

"A question I've gotten a lot from farmers is, with the colder-than-average winter will we have a lot of mortality of the overwintering larvae?" Krupke says. "The answer is probably not. That's not because of the temperature of the air; it's more because we've had so much snow and relatively few days without snow, especially in those northwestern counties where overwintering western bean cutworm caterpillars are located."

Snow cover insulates fields and "keeps the temperature in the soil higher than it would be if the soil were bare, which actually helps the larvae survive," he says.

Fortunately, timely scouting of fields, insecticide treatments and some biotech (Bt) corn varieties have proved successful in controlling the bug.

WBC caterpillars feed on pollen and, if not controlled, the corn ear itself. That process begins after the female moths lay eggs on corn leaves about a week before corn reaches the pollination stage.

The insect was first detected in Indiana in 2006 after migrating from western Corn Belt states. Crop damage reached a peak this past year, with the most severe cases occurring in northwestern Indiana counties. WBC is most common in continuous corn and corn grown in sandy soils and no-till cropping systems.





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Hot Weather Hindering Corn Pollination in Indiana

The heat is taking its toll on Indiana corn, as some corn is standing as high a 8 ft. in the fields, while other is only two feet tall, according to some Indiana farmers.

That could result in mixed pollination as the season goes on.

According to the USDA, the condition rating on the corn crop in Indiana has dropped for the last couple of weeks, confirming the concerns.

Heavy moisture in the spring has also contributed to the heat stress a number of farmers in Indiana are experiencing with their corn. The heavy moisture resulted in shallow rooted plants.