It’s Day 9, it is July 3rd. we are traveling west on Hwy 11 approaching Ashley, North Dakota. We are starting our tour in the state of North Dakota. My name is Moe Agostino, Chief Commodity Strategist with Farms.com Risk Management. I want to thank my sponsors Pride Seeds and Penta Tillage.
Just some quick facts about North Dakota agriculture. Corn yield 132 in 2010 - that was the record - last year was 128. They grow about 2.75 million acres. That's down from last year 3.5. Corn 67% good to excellent vs national average at 75%. Soy's record yield was 34.5 in 2014, it was 32.5 last year. 5.75 million acres planted in 2016, that's down from 5.9 million in 2015. Crop is 67% rated good to excellent. For Wheat, 7.99 million - all wheat acres in 2016. That is up from 7.74 in 2015. They grow a lot of durum wheat, no soft red winter wheat, it is all durum and spring wheat. Spring wheat is 78% good to excellent. Durum acres at 1.09 million vs 2015 at 1.3 million. Did you know that 90% of North Dakota's land is occupied by farms?
This is a bean field here, looks like it was just sprayed. As we travel further north into North Dakota we are seeing the same theme we saw in South Dakota - a lot of drowned out areas. But despite the drowned out areas, that can be very deceiving, because last year South Dakota had a record yield, North Dakota close to that record. So sometimes the crop can recover from that. Obviously some of those areas will not, but here it is almost ankle high - 30 inch rows. Despite all of that wetness it is starting to get a little dry.
[Video clips of North Dakota field conditions]
We are now traveling north, approaching Rugby, North Dakota. This is a canola field here. Canola both here in North Dakota, and we're just south of Brandon, Manitoba, is looking really good this year - we have a really good stand here. It' a little bit cooler day than we have experienced so far on the tour, it's a little windy. Farmers were hoping for some rain but unfortunately they didn't get any. Canola here in North Dakota is rated almost 85% good to excellent. It's blooming - about 60% of the crop is blooming. That's ahead of last year 52%, and a long term average of 27%. This to me looks like a really good crop, I'm going to rate it above average.
[Video clips of North Dakota field conditions]
We are now traveling south on 281, we went north up to Rugby, then we went east, now we are doing the southern part of North Dakota. I wanted to show you this bean field because a lot of farmers on our tour so far, we have done 8 states, farmers have been complaining about a lot of weed pressure, particularly in beans, not so much in the corn. The mare's tail weed, you can see it here and even in the distance. It looks like this farmer did try to spray but didn't catch some of this mare's tail weed. Experts will tell you that it will rob you of yield.
[Video clips of North Dakota field conditions]
We are traveling east on Hwy 1, we are just past Cooperstown traveling towards Fargo, North Dakota. We are going to end our tour in North Dakota, we essentially did a circle - we started near Ashley, went to Bismarck, went up towards Rugby then came across and came back down south and now we are into this area here. You know, early on when we started this tour it wasn't bad. We saw some drowned out conditions but it got a bit better in the central part of North Dakota. As we traveled further east towards Fargo, a lot more drowned out areas it seems like this area got a lot of rain, heavy rain. We are in kind of a compaction area here with some of this corn here. As you get closer into the middle there it's not too bad - it's knee high by July 4th - that's typical for North Dakota. The beans still have some time. The canola and wheat looks good. Some of the wheat near Zeeland was just too dry so some of it is already maturing early enough and probably lose some yield there but all in all, you know, it's early. I'm going to rank this state a 6-6.5. It's kind of an average crop at this point. Still have lots of potential, but again a lot of the farmers were complaining about moisture. We didn't get any moisture today on our tour, a lot of guys have been complaining about weed pressure in the beans. For the most part pretty clean through North Dakota. That mare's tail weed is really a problem this year. I'm not seeing any stress today, it's very windy, a little cooler than we have seen, but I mean if you did have some heat I'm going to guess that some of this corn would be rolling. We do see this soil is very, very dry here. So we are going to rate the crops here in North Dakota average, although canola and wheat look above average. It depends on where you go. I am going to give the state a 6-6.5 out of 10. I want to thank my sponsors Pride Seeds and Penta Tillage.