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Grains: 2025 Crop Tour Day 5 · Professional Ag Marketing Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_02: Welcome to the 2025 Professional Egg Marketing Crop Tour brought to you by Green Key Egg.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_02: Have you ever wanted more out of your crop?
• 0:07
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• 0:22
  SPEAKER_02: Reach out to Noah at 712-441-5446.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_02: Alright, Lucas, we're going to talk about the Northern Crop Tour.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_02: We're going to talk about Minnesota, South Dakota, kind of our wrap-up of uh northeastern Iowa as well.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_02: So happy to have you back, Lucas.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it's good to see you guys back in Laverne after your long journey across the Corn Bell.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_02: It is a fun five days, but we are definitely happy to be back.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: Well, good.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so yeah, we our crew here that went around Minnesota, South Dakota.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um uh what kind of a couple days last week we went a few different directions.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: Not nearly as far as you guys traveled, but we we did our best in uh Minnesota.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: We uh kind of covered I-90, uh stretching all the way over into Dodge County, so kind of getting over to southeast Minnesota.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I guess do you want to start there on our findings?
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_02: So let's start in the east, because ours was in northeast Iowa as well.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: Perfect.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: So uh kind of starting on that uh Dodge County, Southeast Minnesota, and really any county over in that area from from what we saw.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um comparing it to last year, which I know you guys have done quite a bit, uh you know, that area was was pretty poor last year.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: It was wet, it was super wet kind of all year long.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: Uh lots of replant, lots of drowned out spots, uh just corn sitting in in wet soil all year.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: It was a tough year to compare to.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: Tough year, and so what was what's interesting is going to customer places or fields, you know, year after year, now you can get a little bit of history built in.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so you know, some of these APHs are are well into the 200s, and last year, you know, actual yields were in the 160s, 170s, okay?
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: But this year, like we could be 50 to 100 bushel better than last year's yield.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: Like the the when you walk in these fields, and it didn't matter uh what field you walked into, uh stand count was high.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I mean everything got planted pretty early, corn came out of the ground.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we had a little bit of uh maybe May got kind of cools to slow things down a little bit, but uh the other thing I noticed, and this will be a theme on a lot of our stops, is just the ear consistency.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, we're you're not jumping around from a a 14, 16, 18, 20.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: Like they were all uh like one field we checked was they were all 18 round and they're all like 32 to 36 long.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_02: Some of our samples are pretty easy to put together this year.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_02: Because I mean, I think one stop it was like 16 by 30 to 16 by 32 on every ear we pulled.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: And that's pretty rare.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: I mean you've done this 10 years now.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's pretty rare.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: And it's also rare, like when and I I know when you go out and you start, you know, doing your stand counts, pulling your ears, you're like, oh, that's not a real representative sample.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: We did this in several different spots and got the same looking ears and the same around the same yields.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: I think that just goes to show how consistent yields should be over in that part of the state.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_02: I think northeast Iowa there too, we ran into the same problem as we got into like Algona.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_02: It was tough because last year it's like, well, it was a 175.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_02: I think he ended up at like 168 on his yield, which was a real shot in the dark with yellow and lime green corn last year.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_02: Um and then uh, you know, this year it's like, well, 230 pretty easily.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_02: And they were they got rained out hard at the end of July.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_02: Like some of those low spots were pretty wet this year, but it, you know, you go right outside of that low spot and boom, right back to great corn.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_02: So it I think the rain hitting them later this year m worked wonders for their crop versus you know when they planted into it or any of that.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_02: So got good, stable, big roots, and the heavy rains didn't really turn on until after the crop had pollinated and and kind of been through its thing.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yep, I and I would agree that's kind of what we saw in eastern Minnesota, and then even moving into like Martin County, yeah, and more south central Minnesota is yeah, there are areas that had too much rain, um, and there's some drowned out pockets, just it came later, so the crop was up and didn't die right away.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then they're there's uh just not as many acres affected, right?
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: Compared to last year.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so again, Martin County, very important corn county, uh you know, usually one of the highest yielding counties in the state.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um the again stand counts, great.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: Uh for and and the other thing, like in that area, uh obviously fungicide on corn was a big deal.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: Trying to combat tar spot and just the wet weather and humidity, a lot of disease.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: The fields we walked into have been treated, but I mean plants are showing no sign of stress.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I mean, not nitrogen stress, not disease stress, um and running about 10 days to two weeks ahead of normal on maturity.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_02: That part surprised me.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: So you're you're maybe, you know, that's one of the things of okay, so we do a yield check in and in some of these fields it's it's 230, 240, 260.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um so yeah, you're pushing maturity.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: Does that usually lead to high yields?
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: May maybe not, but you know, these things were planted the 10th of April.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: So I mean uh we haven't had a lot of bad days if you're a corn plant.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I don't think that pushing maturity is going to affect much in southern Minnesota anyway.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yep, depending on our finish, freeze, all those things.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_02: The like waterloo stop we had kind of by La Porte City there in Blackhawk County, I think it is.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_02: Well, we made that stop every year, and they uh this was by far, he's like, this is our best crop ever.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it it was it was hands down.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_02: He he had no problem saying that.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_02: Even before we walked in the field and after it, it just confirmed it that it was massive.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_02: So uh really good area there.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_02: And they were just outside of that, way too much rain, but they've had, you know, it'd be 90 and they'd get a half inch of rain the next day.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_02: So real good crop conditions.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_02: But uh so in general for northwestern Corn Belt, I mean that's your uh gravy train rate.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: So kind of coming back, I mean, if you coming all the way along I-90, uh, you know, right around Laverne, great looking crop.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, I think what you're gonna see is yes, there are some bad fields out there, some that got maybe a little poor drainage, uh wind damage, is there's a few here or there, a random hail damage field, but the consistency across uh the crop in this part of the world is amazing.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and we know it got planted early in good conditions, we know it had plenty of rainfall all year, plants aren't stressed, yields should be really high.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: Seeing the same thing going into Southeast South Dakota, East Central South Dakota, um, you know, the Moody County, uh traditionally one of the highest yielding counties in South Dakota, should probably set a record again this year.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_02: I Moody County is weird too, because you can have a pretty bad year, and then you can have a really good like blow-the-doors off year when it comes to like county yields at least.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yep, so I I think uh I think the highest Moody County yield was two eighteen, uh which was crazy high for that county.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: Crazy.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: I I think like two twenty is definitely possible because the acres look good, and again, uh in South Dakota and you're talking no signs of stress uh in the first couple weeks of August, that's pretty rare.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the only area that I would say uh that we saw was bad, and maybe that you guys uh experienced as well, is kind of that stretch, uh Aberdeen stretching in South Dakota stretching over into west central Minnesota.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: They've had a lot of volatile weather.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: Just too much rain, right?
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: Like so, you know, I know the areas got planted on time, got planted early.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: They went through some tough stretches in May with cool, wet, cool, uh, I would say downright cold weather, some frost damage.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: So the crop kind of had to get started again, and then it just started raining, didn't shut off.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: So there's a lot of those kind of why our crop looks consistent down here is we've avoided a lot of the the three, four, five inch rains at a time.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: They haven't.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's showing up.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: So you're getting the ponding, you're getting the yellow spots in the cornfield where they're losing nitrogen.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and and so that will affect the yields, uh, and that's also maturity.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: They're 10 days, two weeks behind what we're seeing down here.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so it the areas that are well drained are gonna yield really well because they got the right moisture and they got planted on time and and everything looks good.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, there's gonna be a lot of areas that don't because it can't drain away.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I think that's gonna be our worst area, but you know, county yield-wise, you're probably a lot of 160, 170, 180, which isn't too far off a normal, but we're not gonna see the in my opinion, we're not gonna see the 1020 bushel above normal like we are in southern Minnesota.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_02: That area in eastern South Dakota, that's where I grew up.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_02: I would love to see a statistic of how many acres percentage-wise was tiled like 20 years ago, even compared to today.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_02: I the I think tile has immensely changed the eastern side of South Dakota.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, I that number would be huge.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_02: It'd be massive.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_02: And that's gotta make a huge difference.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: Uh especially on years like this, yeah.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's why you tile.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: Uh because if even even those years where you get, you know, the two, three-inch rains, you might not get the water away fast enough where it doesn't kill all the crop, but you're gonna save quite a bit of it and you're gonna get rid of that water table faster to allow the roots to grow.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, overall, awesome looking conditions.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: I know you guys have seen this.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: We've talked about it all year on how good the crop looks.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: The one area, you know, kind of in that uh South Dakota, Minnesota area that looks pretty tough, about two hours north of us.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: We'll see how that affects the uh overall yield, but I think Minnesota, South Dakota are gonna have some awesome years.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_02: A sneaky thing to watch out for, I think, is there's been a lot of hailstorms and some volatile weather and wind and things.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_02: This is the perfect weather year and circumstance, I believe.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_02: And the the wind lately has been from the southeast.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_02: You know, we could have some disease, fungal problems, things like that pop up here.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_02: Uh so and I noticed a lot of people have been pulling back on funch side application because of prices, things like that.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_02: So uh that would just be one of those things that uh something to watch out for or it, you know, just recognize that uh from what I saw at least, that could be a definite problem.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yep, and it'd show up in the next two weeks, and then we're probably far enough along where it won't matter.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: But you're exactly right of if there's ever gonna be a disease problem, it should be on a year like this.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_02: All right, well, thank you for your time today.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_02: Of course.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_02: And now I'm gonna have Jaden come on and we're gonna discuss the final yields on South Dakota, Minnesota, and Iowa.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_02: And then the next podcast, we will release our total findings and total summary yield.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_02: So, Jayden, let's start with uh our findings in Iowa yesterday and uh comprising that whole state of an average yield.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_02: What do you come up with there?
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Mike, we came up with a 215 yield for the state of Iowa.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um, their crop is shaping up to be pretty strong overall with some regional variability, you know, those wind pressures in the west with a little duratio storm that came through.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_01: And then our stop yesterday in Kassooth County, there was some wetness there and yellow enough corn, but but looking at the state overall, I mean, if you look at last year, I mean, they were north central Iowa's very wet and there's a lot of drownout spots.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: A big spot.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_01: But yet they still um at a at a record yield.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_01: So I I feel like rain makes green and they're they're gonna be off to a good year.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_02: Iowa's a big enough state in the middle of the U.S.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_02: and they have corn literally in like every county.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_02: And I it's you know, there's corn everywhere.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_02: So you're bound to have some areas that maybe have some variability, like at ratio in northwest Iowa or a few drown out spots up uh middle of uh the state and on the north side.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_02: But well uh yeah, so 215, how does that compare with uh you know a record which was last year at what?
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: 211 Mike was the record.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_02: So 211 last year.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_02: So I mean just above a record, but I I I think that's quite easy for them to do.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_02: Uh how about Minnesota?
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_02: What did we come up with on a Minnesota average yield?
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we came up with a 201 mic and their and their record is 195, and that happened in 2022.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_02: It's a tough uh Minnesota's always hard, and there's a lot of variability and guesses on Minnesota, and a lot of it is where people look out their back door.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_02: In Laverne, for example, great.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_02: Along the I-90 corridor, great.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_02: Now that's that concerns the majority of their crop, right?
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, you get north of the Twin Cities, it's just trees.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_02: But if you look at that Renville County, I think they're historically the largest corn production county.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_02: It's wet, you know, and uh they get some variability through that county and uh through that area.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_02: So it it's important to recognize that if there is a limiting factor, that would be the area where it is if you go from like Brookings, South Dakota to the Twin Cities.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_02: There's some poor-looking fields through that stretch, or at least at one point they they did have some poor-looking fields.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_02: So if you look at Minnesota at a 201 type number, how does that compare with history, Jaden?
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so we're we're six above the record in 2022.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_01: And last year, you know, Minnesota didn't perform as well.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_01: We we had some drowno spots, so yeah, record yield here for Minnesota.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_01: But looking at South Dakota here, uh, we're we're setting them at a 173.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_01: We're we're kind of having them blowing the doors off here.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_01: Their record yield was last year at 164.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_01: Just a lot of customers who we talked to, they're their samples they are pulling is probably 10 to 20 bushels above their APHs.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_02: Pretty easily.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_02: It and and I know Lucas just talked about it, the Aberdeen area.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_02: There are some poor spots um yeah that you know are gonna try to hold it back from a major record producing uh type number.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_02: Just some of those samples we pulled in South Dakota have been massive compared to normal APHs.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_02: So uh that one's a tough one because it's always like how, okay, they're a record, how much above the record are they?
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_02: Um yeah, it'll be interesting to see the last real good year South Dakota really had, I would argue, weather-wise and whatnot, would be like 2018, 2016 were both really good years.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, and maybe our uh advancement in technology can help pull that ahead a little bit.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_02: Lucas and I just talked about tile, for instance.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_02: I know even since 2018 there's been a mass amount of land in eastern South Dakota that's been tiled.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_02: So uh we'll see what that number can do anyways, but uh some some really cool stuff out of South Dakota, Minnesota, and Iowa I thought.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_02: Any any final thought comments on this podcast today?
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_01: No, Mike.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_01: I I just want people to know that they should uh um log into our webinar here for Monday and listen and see our results from our crop tour.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so if for some reason you like listening to us, then on Monday's webinar you get to see our faces as well, which uh you'll learn quickly.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_02: Uh uh I have a a face for the radio, but uh and a and a hairline for one.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_02: But if you look at it, it's gonna be some really cool stuff that we get to share in that Monday webinar, uh, a day ahead of the WASD airport.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_02: So we're gonna talk about the correlation between our numbers and the WASDA numbers on Tuesday.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_02: It's gonna be some really cool stuff on that one.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_02: So let us know if you're having trouble finding it on any of the socials.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_02: We'll put a link in this as well.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_02: So thank you for your time today, Jaden.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, we appreciate it.
• 15:33
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• 15:40
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