(Radio Iowa) – Harvest is progressing quickly in Iowa with mostly fair weather, though yield reports are varied on soybeans. Jeff Frank, who farms in north-central Iowa near Auburn, says he ran a soil moisture deficit of ten inches this season but caught a few timely rains in August that benefited the soybean crop. Frank says his yields are better than expected. “Most of mine have been running right around 70 (bushels per acre), which is really a good yield for our area,” Frank says. “It’s amazing. The beans look great and they’re pretty much weed-free. We threw everything at them. We put fungicide on and we put insecticide on and we treated them with Ilevo, so we threw the book at it.”

Brent Renner also farms in north-central Iowa near Klemme, and says he’s seing huge variability in the early beans he’s combining. “There’s a lot of variability not only in yield but moisture and plant stage. There’s a lot of green stems. It’s just all over the place,” Renner says. “We had some areas that got affected by frost and replants. Two fields that I’ve done so far, one is in the high 40s and the other one is in the mid 60s, so again, very variable.”

Renner says with the limited moisture he had this season, some of higher-end yields are a welcome surprise. Frank and Renner say both soybeans and corn have been drying down fast and some corn has stand-ability issues, which will make harvest scheduling a challenge.