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Northwest Iowa planting update

A northwest Iowa farmer says he has high expectations for the 2024 growing season despite facing some drought conditions the last few years.

Kelly Nieuwenhuis raises corn and soybeans on 2700 acres in O’Brien County. “We’re sitting pretty good,” he said. “We’ve got a good moisture soil profile. We’ve got tile lines running since December. I think we got a good start to the 2024 growing season. We just need it to warm up and planters will be rolling here in a couple weeks or a week.”

He tells Brownfield he’ll start planting corn around April 12^th. “This year one different thing is we’re going to try no-tilling all of our beans for the first time,” he said. “We did some trials last year and seemed to be alright. But we know it’s got to take the right conditions for that to work for us.”

Nieuwenhuis says all of his inputs for the growing season were prepaid and nitrogen prices were about half the cost from 2023.

AUDIO: Northwest Iowa farmer Kelly Nieuwenhuis