2021 Ohio Crop Tour Results
Dusty Sonnenberg, CCA, Ohio Field Leader; a project of the Ohio Soybean Council and soybean Check-off
The live 2021 Ohio Crop Tour, sponsored by Ohio Field Leader, wrapped up on Tuesday with a total of 20 counties being visited by the two teams. The tour summary information and county by county details are now available.
It is said that “rain makes grain”, and that was the take away from the northern leg of the 2021 Ohio Crops Tour sponsored by Ohio Field Leader, a project of the Ohio Soybean Council and Soybean Check-off. Those farms that have had sufficient rainfall early-on looked very promising, and have the potential for excellent yields with some timely rain to finish it out. Those fields that were lacking rain as of late, are in need of some moisture to relieve the stress and help the crop finish out with the potential that is left. July rains help the corn during the critical periods of pollination and grain fill. Timely August rains can literally translate to millions of dollars of revenue for the Ohio soybean crop.
Overall the corn fields on the northern leg of the crop tour looked very good. Many had been sprayed with a fungicide. There was very little disease present, and virtually no insect pressure observed. A few hybrids exhibited double ears. Overall emergence of the corn crop seemed to be very uniform.
Any areas of concern were traced back to planter issues or field conditions at the time of planting. The corn yield estimate from the northern leg of the Oho Crop Tour is 177 bu/ac.
Soybeans looked outstanding in the northern part of Ohio. Many of the varieties had 3-4 pods per node and 3 beans per pod. The height of the crop varied. Overall the crop was very clean with virtually no disease or insect pressure noted. In the majority of the fields evaluated, both a fungicide and insecticide application had been made. The question remains if these applications were necessary this year given the low pest pressure levels. Similar to the corn crop, emergence in the soybeans seemed to be very uniform. The soybean yield estimate from the northern leg of the Ohio Crop Tour is in the mid to upper 50’s.
There were definitely some surprises along the way on the southern leg of of the in-person 2021 Ohio Crop Tour. First, we found some surprising pollination issues and one of the highest disease levels we have ever seen in corn in the first couple of counties. Of course, there were some highlights with strong yields in counties where rains have been steady through the growing season, which is what we expected after a strong start and generally good growing conditions for much of Ohio in 2021. We were very surprised, though, about the extent of areas suffering from very dry conditions, particularly in the western part of the tour. We found some pretty wide and deep cracks in the soil we were not expecting to see.
We sampled fields in 12 counties over a day and a half. Overall we settled upon an average yield of 174.7 bushels for corn on Ohio Crop Tour South this year. This was slightly lower than yields to the north and, honestly, a little lower than what we were expecting based on our perceptions of the growing season. For soybeans we averaged out with a yield of 48.3 bushels.
Overall, we saw pretty significant disease pressure, though most had been addressed with fungicides. In terms of insects, we saw the usual culprits with a few soybean aphids mixed in, but nothing particularly noteworthy enough to be of economic importance. Be sure to check out our county-by-county tour to see all of the results. Thanks to our fantastic participants this year and those who allowed us to visit their fields and shared their insights with us.
For county by county results, visit: https://ocj.com/2021/08/crop-tour-by-county-2021-virtual-crop-tour-of-ohio-corn/