Last year’s record Indiana yields are being followed this growing season with the kind of record rainfall that is going to hurt the field crop harvest just getting underway.
The state received 15.09 inches of rain during June and July, which made it Indiana’s second wettest June-July period in history, topped only in 1958 by 16.15 inches, according to Ken Scheeringa, associate state climatologist for the Indiana State Climate Office.
Northeast Indiana was hit harder than many other areas of the state. The region received 231 percent of normal rainfall in June, compared with 214 percent for Indiana, and 160 percent of normal rainfall in July, compared with 147 percent for the state, he said.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service breaks Indiana into nine districts for reporting and projected earlier this month northeast Indiana would see the lowest soybean and corn yields among them.
The region’s corn yield is expected to fall to 139 bushels per acre, down from 177.5 last year, and its soybean yield is expected to fall to 46 bushels per acre, down from 53.
Indiana’s corn yield is expected to fall to 156 bushels per acre, down from 188 last year. Its soybean yield is expected to fall to 50 bushels per acre from 56.
With the corn harvest not yet started and the soybean harvest barely started in Whitley County on Sept. 15, Phil Walker, superintendent of the Northeast-Purdue Agricultural Center, had not heard any talk of good yields from the few farmers who had a field or two done at that point.
In addition to the rain problems, he said August was dryer than usual, which can affect soybean yields. Last month was Indiana’s 29th driest August on record, Scheeringa said.
In the southern part of northeast Indiana, at the Salamonie Mills grain elevator in Warren, grain merchandiser Sarah Scheiber said half a dozen farmers who had cut beans were reporting per-bushel yields in the 30 to 40 range, which is about 20 below normal, “so definitely the early beans are coming in less than in recent years.”
“Where the water just stood in a lot of places, there’s nothing at all,” she said.
But, there also are good stands of soybeans, sometimes in the same fields that saw sections drowned out. And some farmers are optimistic that their surviving longer-season and later-planted beans will perform better than expected, Scheiber said.
Chris Hurt, an agricultural economist at Purdue University, lowered his estimate of the crop value Indiana farmers will lose because of the rain to $225 million, which is down from $515 million in July.
Hardier than expected soybeans accounted for most of the difference. The soybean damage, estimated at $200 million in July, was revised downward to $10 million.
“Some farmers compare to last year and that makes this year seem worse because 2014 was a record high across all crop reporting districts for both corn and beans,” Hurt said.
“We also need to keep in mind that these are still early estimates and the October crop production numbers begin to be more accurate because there is good harvest yield data by that point.”
Looking at district trend yields, or averages from 1990 through 2014, northwest Indiana is projected to see the greatest corn crop impact from the rain because its corn yield is expected to be only 81 percent of trend, he said.
Northeast Indiana’s corn yield is expected to be 87 percent of trend. The state’s corn yield is expected to be 94 percent of trend.
But, northeast Indiana is projected to see the biggest soybean crop impact from the rain, with its soybean yield at 91.1 percent of trend. The state’s soybean yield is expected to be only slightly lower than trend, less than 1 percent.
Indiana’s three southern districts are expecting above-trend corn and soybean yields.