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Iowa farmer raises ‘phenomenal’ 2024 crop

Pictured: Brownfield’s Brent Barnett (left) with Stanton, Iowa farmer Mark Peterson at the 2024 NAFB Convention in Kansas City.

A southwest Iowa farmer says his 2024 harvest was better than expected.

Mark Peterson farms 500 row crop acres near Stanton. “I don’t want to affect the markets too much, but our yields were phenomenal. It has to be the genetics and some of the things we’re able to do anymore that allowed us to pull the crop out of the ground that we did.”

Speaking to Brownfield at the 2024 NAFB Convention in Kansas City, he said it was a similar story for some of his neighbors. “More than one individual I know has said it’s the biggest yield they’ve ever seen.”

Peterson says it was a challenge navigating a variety of weather conditions. “We were too wet, we were too dry, we were too hot, we were too cold. It was just the same as anybody else. On the wet end, we weren’t near as wet as north-central Iowa.”

He says he’s currently making seed and other input decisions for the 2025 growing season.

TRADE TALK INTERVIEW: Stanton, Iowa farmer Mark Peterson