We’re asking growers about what’s really happening in their fields. Click the Feedback From The Field reporting form and give us your first-hand account on conditions and yields.

Use the interactive map below to see all this year’s reports just by clicking the flagged locations. Click the box in the upper left-land corner of the map to bring up an index of what the different colors of the markers signify and to toggle the week’s reports on and off.

There’s nothing average about this year’s crops – including the averages. While average yields and crop ratings slipped over the past week, farmers reporting Feedback From The Field last week reported yields that were very bad in some places but good in others.

Drier weather overall got more growers into the field, but it’s still wet in many areas. And even growers who are finishing up report highly variable production.

“Yields all over the place, mostly lower by a lot,” said a producer in southern Ohio with 160-bushel corn and 45-bushel soybeans.

Indeed, though average yields and conditions for corn and soybeans slipped last week, the percent of those crops rated good or excellent and poor or very poor both increased. Corn yields ranged from 90 to 240 bushels per acre, with soybeans from 25 to 70 bpa.

The October blizzard on the northern Plains has some producers wondering when they’ll be able to get back into the field.

A farmer in North Dakota with 30 inches of snow on “super saturated soil” was in that boat. ”It will be weeks before things can straighten out,” was the worry. “Snow will have to go and the ground will have to freeze to support harvest equipment.”

“The wet spring of 20″ rains followed by dry summer of 2″ rains and several 90-100 degree days really cooked down the yields,” was the report, though late rains did help soybeans some.

But the verdict wasn’t negative everywhere. Yields of 200 bushels per acre or better were reported in Iowa, with some good results posted in Nebraska and Kansas too.

An Iowa farmer who was 80% done with soybeans had averaged 58.8 bushels per acre. “Not bad for planting June 1st,” he said.

Source: Bryce Knorr, Farm Futures