“Yields are going to be all over the board this fall,” predicted Pate Fandel, assistant professor of agriculture at Illinois Central College in East Peoria, in Tazewell County. “There will be fields with as low as 30 to 40 bushels (of corn) per acre and fields with up to 150.

“I think the average for most fields around the (central Illinois) area will be 80 to 130 bushels. It is all dependent on the hit-and-miss rainfall we’ve had.”

While it is far too late for brittle, withered corn plants to benefit from any late-season precipitation, recent rainfalls that brought 1-2 inches to most of central Illinois, coupled with a predicted dousing Labor Day weekend courtesy of Tropical Depression Isaac, should help to increase soybean yields, according to Fandel.

“These rains will help the late-maturing beans, like late Group 3 or early Group 4 varieties, but late Group 2 and early Group 3 varieties are starting to turn yellow. The rains should add a few bushels to what late-maturing soybean yields might have been,” he said.

A few central Illinois farmers who began to harvest corn last week reported to Fandel their yield monitors were registering harvests of 80-150 bushels per acre “depending on where they are in the field.” According to the Aug. 27 NASS Illinois Weather & Crops report, 6 percent of Illinois’ corn had been harvested, with farmers rating conditions at 43 percent very poor, 35 percent poor, 18 percent fair and 4 percent good.

Jake Streitmatter, who farms across the river from Fandel near Princeville in Peoria County, isn’t very impressed with his “pretty much burned up” corn crop. “We’re hoping for a 50 to 100 bushels per acre average, but I won’t be surprised if we don’t get it,” he said.

Streitmatter added he wasn’t pleased with the performance of corn seed hybrids touted for drought and extreme temperature tolerance. “With the hybrids and technology that we have now, I think the yields will be more disappointing than in 1988,” he said.

Like Fandel, Streitmatter said he’s holding out hope for adequate yields from late-variety soybeans to salvage some kind of a decent harvest. “We’ll take what we can get,” he said, shrugging.

The NASS report rated the soybean crop condition as 25 percent very poor, 26 percent poor, 38 percent fair and 11 percent good.

Ohio had isolated showers and enough precipitation to reach what is average for this time of year, but it did little to improve already drought-stricken crops, said the NASS report for the week ending Aug. 26.

Will the August rains help the soybean crop? “It really depends on the growth of the soybean,” said Dr. Laura Lindsey, Ohio State University soybean and small grains specialist.

“Soybeans start reaching physiological maturity around R7, when the soybean plant has one mature pod. That’s when the rains won’t help a whole lot. If it is before that, at the R6 stage, which is when the soybean seeds are growing, then the rains will help the soybean size.”

The soybeans are going to be variable, Lindsey said. Some areas will have a normal crop. “I don’t think anyone will be above-normal” she said. “There will be areas below normal and I think there will be areas that will be really below normal.”

According to the NASS report, 6 percent of corn was rated mature, 5 percent ahead of last year and 4 percent ahead of the five-year average. Corn rated in the dough stage was at 92 percent, compared to 67 percent last year and 79 percent for the five-year average.

Fifteen percent of soybeans were dropping leaves, compared to 1 percent last year and 3 percent for the five-year average. Eighty-four percent of the third cutting of alfalfa hay was complete, 6 percent ahead of last year and 4 percent ahead of the five-year average.