With the 2024 harvest season coming to an end, the soil temperatures are dropping and fall tillage work is underway. Certified Crop Specialist with West Central FS, Brendan Marshall, looks back on the growing season that brought on one of the best crops:
“In July and the first part of August we were going out there talking about how everything looked so great, it’s so good, it’s so good. I’m not saying we had bad crops. I said we have had really good crops. Soybeans, in some areas a little disappointing just because things looked so good, but we missed rains in August, and it was hot. I will say about the corn, there is quite a bit of green snap in areas from the late June and early July wind events we had with some storms, so there are some surprises out there with that. Corn yields are still good. Are they the best? Probably for some people the best crop they have had, some others could say this is not their best, but one of the best. The disease pressure wasn’t there as bad, but tar spot came in late on corn, but it didn’t really affect things. The soybeans are what surprised me. I really thought that we would average a lot better bean yields because they went in such good conditions last spring. We had good ground, good dry conditions, a lot of beans went in early, but they are not as big as I thought they would be.”
Marshall says he has already been talking with growers on the 2025 season, looking at marketing opportunities and discussing whether to plant corn on corn or going back to a corn to bean rotation.
