There is again no Iowa Crop Progress and Condition Report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) due to the ongoing federal government shutdown. However, the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship (IDALS) did release its weekly weather summary on Monday for the week ending Oct. 12. Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig says, “Based on the crop progress reports published over the past five years, Iowa farmers typically have about two-thirds of the soybeans and one-third of the corn harvested statewide by mid-October. As I’ve visited with farmers, driven through rural parts of the state, and spent several days in the field on our family farm in northwest Iowa, it seems that harvest is about where we’d expect this time of year.” Temperatures averaged 61.4 degrees statewide, about five degrees above normal, while widespread rainfall returned to much of the state. Precipitation totals ranged from none in parts of northwest Iowa to as much as three inches in the southwest. The week’s high temperature was 88 degrees Fahrenheit on Oct. 5, while Sioux Center recorded the low at 31 degrees.
