Miami County Crop/Weather for Week of July 13

Weather-The week started out wet but has turned hot and dry. Late Saturday night and into Sunday morning areas of the county received up to 5 inches of rain. Once again there was water standing in fields and once again some soybeans got drowned out. It looks like the next chance for rain will come this Saturday or Sunday, until then, hot/humid conditions remain.

Wheat-Harvest is just about finished up and the straw is just about all taken off as well. While it was still too wet Sunday and much of Monday, the combines and balers were out in force the rest of the week.

Corn-A majority of the corn is tasseling or has tasseled and looks great.

Soybeans-In our better drained, higher ground areas, the soybeans look great as well. I believe that our most advanced soybeans are at the R-3 to R-4 stage. On the other end of the spectrum, there are some beans that are still struggling and the showers late last week and early this week didn't help. I have heard some reports of more double crop beans going in but haven't personally witnessed much of this.

Hay-Finally we had a string of good hay-making days. It was a mixed bag of some producers finally getting around to taking off their first cutting and some taking their second cutting off but there was a fair amount of hay baled this week. On an interesting side note, we held a pasture walk on July 17 and Bob Hendershot, state grazing specialist with NRCS, mentioned that he stopped in an equipment dealer in the central part of the state and that particular dealer sold 14 hay balers in one day.

IPM-The recent string of good weather has also allowed our producers to get into fields and spray some herbicides. Most fields are looking much better now, at least as far as weeds are concerned, than they did previously. There isn't much to report in the insect and disease front but Japanese Beetles have emerged and are out in force and could cause some soybean defoliation and may even eat silks on corn. Susan Couser, our ag agent has put out a trap for Western Bean Cutworm and will be doing some root digs in the coming weeks to see if there is much rootworm damage in corn.