Crop Scouts Found ‘a Tough’ Corn Crop in MN

The Pro Farmer Crop Tour wrapped up Thursday night in Rochester. Pro Farmer’s Minnesota’s corn yield estimate is just shy of 165 bushels per acre. That compares to 181 bushels per acre a year ago. The soybean pod count is 1,036, surprisingly up from 985 pods in a three-by-three square last year. Chip Flory, who led the western leg of the tour, had nothing good to say about the Minnesota crop. “The corn crop is running out of gas,” said Flory. “If they put on a fall-applied nitrogen, it seems like most of that nitrogen is gone at this point. It was way, way, way too much water for the corn crop to deal with. The color stinks, the ear size stinks, and it’s a tough crop up in Minnesota.”