As Iowa has seen sunshine and a break from prolonged precipitation, farmers had 4.4 days of suitable fieldwork last week.

The latest United States Department of Agriculture report shows activities for the past week included harvesting corn and soybeans, baling stalks and planting cover crops. According to the USDA crop report, 29% of the state’s corn crop has been harvested, which is four days behind the five-year average. Soybean harvest is 37% complete, which is 12 days behind the average.

Guthrie County ISU Extension Field Agronomist Mike Witt shares what producers in the county have been saying, “I’ve heard that a lot of the yields that people are getting are, I believe the term that they’ve been using is ‘incredibly average.’ There’s some that are decent and some that are not so decent depending on where you were at and where you’ve gotten with the rain and different weather patterns like that.”

Witt says during the past week producers have been moving as fast as they can to dig out soybeans as the crop won’t hold because of plant structural failure due to recent precipitation. USDA reports the 37% of soybean crop is the smallest percentage harvested by October 21st since 1985. Soybean condition is rated 65% good to excellent.