Some crops in the Southeast are off to a great start but moisture is high on the priority list for growers.  Pioneer Hybred Seed Rep Marc Hutlet says a lot of soybeans went in around May 18-19 and fields have good pod development and are doing well.  But we are seeing a fair amount of ground cracking and it would be a tremendous time for us to get 3/4 to an inch of rain right now.  In fact he notes it's critical in the next week that we must get a bit of rain to keep that high end potential.

Corn is also ahead of schedule with tasseling happening now and some of the early crops are even silking.  Hutlet explains with corn, if there is one of the stages that you would like to have good moisture is at silking time when it's pollinating and doing the kernel set on cob.  That too would go a long way to keep the high end potential with a little bit of rainfall.  He says most of the crops look fairly good but just need to be freshened up with a little bit of water.  

Hutlet adds there are some areas in the Southeast that got 2-3 inches of rain, those fields are a little bit wavy and are a bit behind but the staging is good.  He says we are coming into August 1st with a lot of the corn silking and that is good news.  From then we need about 50 days to take it home in terms of having good quality corn.  Hutlet says depending on the amount of heat, and we don't need 32 degrees but 28 is okay, crops will mature well and we should end up with harvest ahead of frost.  On the other hand he hopes we don't get intense heat because the last thing we need is for the heat to blast the flowers on late seeded canola which is now blooming.

Chris Teetaert