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Agronomist urges patience as crop quality picture develops

An agronomy expert says the amount of rainfall that fell across parts of the Midwest during the opening weeks of harvest exceeded expectations.

“September is going to be one that we won’t soon forget.”

Justin Welch, head of commercial agronomy for Syngenta Seeds, says the crop was in good shape coming out of August, though recent wet weather could take a toll on grain quality.

“Sprouting in the field is not a good thing,” he said. “We’ve had many reports of that over the last two weeks, which could degrade part of the quality of our crop coming out.”

But he tells Brownfield social media posts don’t always reflect what’s happening across an entire region.

“Hopefully it’s not as widespread as the pictures,” he said. “Sometimes you’ll get two or three pictures, and the assumption is it’s half the crop. And the reality is it’s one or two percent. My hope is that’s the case that the pictures are the minority of what’s going to happen with the quality.”

Welch says harvest pace has picked up steam now fields have been drying out.

Justin Welch: