U.S. Midwest crop tour: Illinois still on course for record corn crop

IOWA CITY, Iowa (Reuters) -- The U.S. Midwest crop tour projected Illinois corn yields on Wednesday at a 147 bushels per acre, the highest estimate for Illinois corn in the tour's 15-year history, ProFarmer group leader Scott Davis said.

Soybean pod counts were also higher this year at 1,429.5 pods in three square feet compared to 1,359.5 in 1999 but were lower than the tour's 1998 estimate of 1,437.4.

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Soybean yields were not calculated because of the plant's development stage in August.

Members of the U.S. Midwest eastern crop tour inspected 145 corn fields and 139 soybean fields in Illinois on Wednesday. Tour members included agronomists, farmers and other grain industry analysts.

As the eastern leg of the U.S. Midwest crop tour moved through Illinois on Wednesday, corn and soybean fields improved in appearance and sample yields, crop scouts said.

"If we're going to reach USDA's estimates we needed to see what we saw today," said Alan Karkosh, one of the group's leaders who farms in northeast Iowa.

In the latest state crop report released August 14, the U.S. Department of Agriculture projected record yields in Illinois at 158 bushels per acre for corn and a record soybean yield of 492 million bushels.

Illinois was the second top producing state for U.S. corn and soybeans in 1999 following Iowa.

The U.S. corn crop was forecast to yield a record 10.369 and soybeans were projected to yield a record 2.989 billion bushels.

"I can't think of anything that would damage the (Illinois) corn crop at this point," said Garry Kepley, Illinois agricultural state statistician.

Kepley said Illinois ear count was up 12 percent from 1994, the record holder in U.S. corn production.

But crop scouts taking samples in northern Illinois said fields were not impressive and exhibited signs of too much water earlier this summer including open spaces in fields.

The biggest question for tour members was whether the U.S. soybean crop will measure up to USDA's latest estimates.

Crop scouts said the crops they sampled in Illinois were far superior to the Ohio and Indiana soybean crops.

"Beans in Illinois were more consistent, better in height and soil was less stressed from lower moisture levels," group leader Karkosh said.

Moisture levels would be an important factor across the Midwest over the next two weeks as the U.S. soybean cop was completing the pod-filling stage.

Tour members noted several pods with four beans developing.

Diseases were minimal in the fields sampled, tour members said. There were isolated cases of brown stem rot in soybeans and several corn fields exhibiting signs of gray leaf spot. But crop scouts did not think the level of disease found was enough to affect yields.

The eastern leg of the U.S. Midwest ProFarmer crop tour moves into Iowa and southern Minnesota on Thursday. The tour began in Ohio on Monday and travelled through Indiana on Tuesday.

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