Even though the several inches of rainfall that happened last week in Greene County, it may have also uncovered some issues.

Landus Cooperative Field Agronomist Dan Bjorklund tells Raccoon Valley Radio he saw some corn stalks were tilted or completely on their sides in portions of the county, which he thought was unusual with a not very harsh storm that came through. He believes the pushed over corn was a result of corn rootworm, which weakened the overall plant.

Bjorklund points out another issue for corn that he hasn’t seen yet in Greene County is tar spot, which develops as lesions on the leaves of corn.

“I think it’s only a matter of time before we find it in Greene County because we found it last year. It was late, it was more into September. It set the stage for the inoculant to come in and with that rain we had last week, you only need about seven hours of leaf wetness that’s all the tar spot spores need to germinate and develop on the leaf and then they’ll reinfect all the way of the leaves, starting with the lower leaves all the way up to the top.”   

As for soybeans, Bjorklund says the rainfall helped to curtail some of the yellowing in some fields. 

The latest Crop Progress and Condition Report from the Iowa Department of Agriculture, statewide last week, corn’s condition rating improved to 64 percent good to excellent and soybeans were also up to 58 percent good to excellent, which Bjorklund says Greene County is right in line with those figures.