The 2020 Crop Tour began on June 23 in Champaign Illinois. We traveled some 1,800 miles West and North through parts of Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Western Indiana in 4 days. There are 25 predetermined stops along the way with 9 in Illinois, 11 in Iowa, 3 in Minnesota and 2 in Western Indiana. Many of these fields are annual stops so we can compare the corn crop versus our last stop in 2018.
This year’s tour stats are as follows. We traveled 25 counties with 9 of those stops being in a County with a Top 5 three year average corn yield for their respective State. Five of these stops were counties that are in the lowest 25% of their respective State for three year average corn yield. The number one county is Crawford County Iowa (Western Iowa) with a three year average corn yield of 223.53 bushels per acre. The lowest average corn yield on the tour is Jackson County Minnesota (Southwestern MN) at 176.47 bushels per acre.
1 week before the start, Champaign Illinois has the largest amount of rain year to date (24.08″) and largest amount since April 10 (11.78″). Plymouth Iowa has the least year to date at only 9.48 inches and Cass Iowa has the least since April 10 at 3.97 inches. Clearly Western Iowa has been extremely dry. We will be interested to see if it has had an effect on the crop yet.