Seed continues to go rapidly into Upper Midwest fields
Eastern Iowa is a bright spot so far this planting season. It, and other parts of the region, continue to make rapid planting progress.
5:19 pm, May 11, 2021
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Farmers across the region have made rapid planting progress. (Erin Ehnle Brown / Grand Vale Creative LLC)
Eastern Iowa farmers had a difficult 2020 growing season, in part because of the derecho, a series of powerful straight-line wind storms that devastated crops across wise swaths of the state. That makes the promising start to the 2021 crop season even more satisfying, said Ryan Kay, an Iowa agriculturalist.
Corn and soybeans planting progress is far more than advanced than usual, and "we're blessed. We're setting the state for an average or above-average year," said Kay, accredited farm manager and accredited land consultant with Hertz Farm Management and Hertz Real Estate Services in Mount Vernon, Iowa.