Crop Talk by IAS – 05/20/2026

Crop Talk by IAS – Field Scouting Update | May 20

This week on Crop Talk by IAS, the agronomy team shares updates from across Iowa as recent rains begin changing field conditions fast.

In this episode, the team discusses:
 • Emergence concerns following heavy rainfall and crusting conditions
 • Hail and wind impacts in parts of Iowa
 • Stand counts and early replant evaluations
 • Weed flushes and delayed herbicide activation
 • Transitioning into post herbicide and sidedress season
 • Why low spots, ponding, and uneven emergence need close attention right now

Special guest Zach Fagan, IAS Seed Specialist, also joins the conversation to break down current replant discussions across eastern Iowa. He shares what planting windows are showing the most concern, realistic yield expectations for thinner stands, and why weed control may be the bigger issue in many replanted fields.

The Crop Talk team emphasizes the importance of timely scouting and making practical, informed decisions as crops continue to emerge and conditions shift quickly across the region.

Featured this week:
Nicholas Giesseman, Host and Eastern Region Agronomist 
Nick Thompson, Southwest Region Agronomist (Ellsworth) 
Owen Heetland, Northwest Region Agronomist (Cleves) 
Melissa Schumann, Northeast Region Agronomist 
Special Guest: Zach Fagan, IAS Seed Specialist 

🎧 Listen now
Have a question for the team? Send it to CropTalk@InnovativeAg.com

To learn more about Innovative Ag Services and our agronomy services, visit InnovativeAg.com/Agronomy.

Produced by IAS Communications in partnership with My Four Creative.

Transcript

Nicholas Giessman 0:00

Welcome to Crop Talk, brought to you by Innovative Ed Services, and this is our Fields Guide special. Each week from March through October, our agronomy team shares timely, boots on the ground updates from across the IAS geography so you can make confident decisions as the seasons change. Today you'll hear a quick regional update from our IAS agronomist, including what we're seeing in the fields right now, what to keep an eye on next, and a few practical scouting reminders you can put to work this week. I am your host, Nicholas Giesman. This week on Crop Talk, we have a very special guest, Zach Fagan, out of the Cascade location. We're going to be talking to him about some seed and some replant issues and what he's seeing and you know how to tackle those different problems we have. But let's get it started. We're going to send it out to the Southwest region and get an update from Nick.

SPEAKER_03 0:53

Thanks, Nicholas. This is Nick Thompson over in Ellsworth. I cover Harden County, Story County, Hamilton County, and Webster County. We got about a half inch of rain last night, and that's going to put us about five inches over our year-to-date average. So just keep that in mind. If you're starting to see some emergence issues, maybe dig up some seeds, make sure that they're not getting waterlogged and that they will actually make it out of the ground. Over the weekend here in Ellsworth, there was a little bit of hail that struck on Friday and uh Sunday. I haven't seen any damage that's required any replant or anything like that, but there have been a lot of leaves knocked around with the strong winds and that hail. The crusting has kind of been taken care of with the rain. Some people had the rotary hose out early last week before this came through, but I think anything that we had when it got this rain on top of it just kind of loosened it up and softened it up. That crop should be coming through all right. As a blanket statement, I would just say that the corn around here has been withstanding the high winds and some of the inclement weather that we've been having, a lot better than the beans. That being said, like I said, there was no replant at our location. We're very fortunate for that. Currently, we're sitting on about 60 acres left of pre, and just about everyone has their stuff in the ground. My biggest watch out going forward is just going to be those low spots. Make sure it's not ponding up there, drowning out your seed, and make sure you're not catching any washouts, just taking that seed with it. That's it for me down here in the southwest. I'll send it up to Owen over in the northwest.

Owen Heetland 2:33

This is Owen Heatland, the Cleaves location covering Harden, Grundy, Butler, and Franklin County. Over the weekend, we've received probably anywhere from one to three and a half to four inches of rain, depending on which part of the geography you're in. 95 to 100% of the corn is in, 85 to 95% of the beans are in. Stuff looks pretty good around here. We did have some crusting issues, some hard ground issues. Obviously, that's been solved by the rain. We will continue to do stand counts, you know, when it dries up, but stand counts we have done have looked pretty darn good. Um, emergence has really looked good the last couple days with some warmer weather and and the wetness. Freeze are all done. Looks like they are working pretty good. We are starting to see some grass break due to the dry conditions for probably two weeks after we sprayed the pre and the crop will start to grow fast. So we are switching to skinny tires and preparing to spray as soon as it does dry up. Hopefully, sometime next week. We'll get started with postcorn and probably get started with side dress as well. I don't think I have any other updates, so I will pass it up to the northeast region to Melissa.

SPEAKER_00 3:44

Thank you, Owen. This is Melissa Schumann out of our Al Qaeda office here, covering Clayton County in the extreme northeast Iowa here. We received some really nice rainfall over the last few days. It's actually actively raining as we speak. It luckily came down nice, so we don't have any concerns out in the fields. We are starting to be able to row the crops, which is a really exciting time. But we do want to actively watch those fields. Our early herbicide applications may not have been activated for a couple weeks because the rain has been delayed. So we're seeing lots of early flushes of weeds, especially in those worked fields. Those fields, we need to be discussing a potential additional passive herbicide, or if we need to move up our post-herbicide application to keep those weeds at bay as the residual has just been activated since this weekend. We're also seeing some burndown of fall-seeded cover crops ahead of planting for some summer annuals and winter wheat fungicide applications are coming up for this next week, or the kind of watch outs we're seeing in northeast Iowa. With that, I will send it down to Nicholas in our eastern region.

Nicholas Giessman 4:53

Thank you very much for that update, Melissa. This is Nicholas Giesman, and I cover Dubuque and Jackson County. As pretty much everybody else already said, we're we got some rain here over the weekend. We are up to about an inch and a half in our northern part of Dubuque County and Jackson. The farther south you go, a little better than a half down there. As a region, we're looking at 98% done planting. A lot of the pre's are on. People are getting chemicals placed and getting ready to start spraying some post-herbicides as the weather gets fit next week or the week after. This crop's really gonna start growing. So right now we're wrapping up our pre's, got a little bit left to plant, and then you know, really tearing into that post-application, cleaning up the weeds that are having some great emergence right now with residuals not working and a lot of moisture and heat out there. But otherwise, we're doing pretty good down here in the in the southeast. Like I said earlier, we're gonna have a guest speaker, Zach Fagan. I'm gonna kick it over to him, let him introduce himself, and then we will get into a little update and some knowledge on some replant information.

SPEAKER_01 5:48

Zach, here you go. Thanks, Nicholas. Hi, everybody. This is Zach Fagan, seed specialist for the east side of Innovative Ag. Just a couple key highlights on the replant stuff. Obviously, I don't know if you guys have probably heard a lot of people talking. April 21st through the 23rd is our really, really roughest time for planting. It was moisture in the ground, but then the ground conditions and temperatures after that did not do us any favors. There was a lot of rotary hoeing done on corn and soybeans, which helped those stands, but quite a few of them that I went on calls to actually ended up being torn up and replanted, whether it was corn or beans. The corn was torn up and beans, most every one of them fields I went and had more beans just stuck into them. And then our next go-round, May 2nd to the third, was kind of when everyone got started heavy again over here in the east. That stuff all looks pretty good, especially this rain. There is a couple pockets where it was a little bit wet, a little bit cooler. And if the hybrid you have didn't have really good emergence on it or seedling vigor, that stuff has a little bit of concern. So now is definitely the time to be checking on the April 21st through 23rd window of corn and beans planted, and then that May 2nd through May 3rd, just to verify that we got a good emergence there. When it kind of comes to your decisions on replanting, you know, April 25th time frame, if we planted our final stand was 20 to 24,000, we still got really good yield potential there, 85 to 95 percent of our normal yield yield level. So if we go back and somebody doesn't like the stand to 20,000 and we're gonna go back and plant more in there now, most of the experts would say we're only gonna end up with an 85% yield level anyway. So those fields really need to be taken into account of we're not gonna gain a lot of yield potential out of this. Is it more of just a cosmetic issue? Or, you know, if it's a low area, do we just need to go stick more in just for weed control? Because that is the biggest concern on a lot of the replants right now. It's we got gaps, we got stretches missing the corn or soybeans. And if it's not gonna make a big difference on yield, probably at the end of the day, but we really don't want to be fighting a big patch of weeds out there, whether it's in corn or soybeans, and then we're gonna go on and fight them the next couple years. So then on the soybean side, I personally on a lot of these fields, if they got a decent coverage out there with not a lot of gaps in them, even if we get stands down to 75 to 80,000 out there, I'm real comfortable leaving them alone. But like I said, the biggest concern is weed control at this time. If we get a spot the size of a pickup or a side by side out there that has absolutely nothing in it, that's where our weeds are gonna come into play. But soybeans are very good at compensating for their lack of population out there. If they will counteract that and put just put more pods on those plants that are there. And like a lot of these guys said, with these rains we've had here in all of Iowa, you're probably gonna see more beans coming up at this point if they have not broke off under the ground. So that's about all I have for the replant side of it. Just follow up the two planting windows there, April 21st through the 23rd, and then May 2nd through May 3rd. Those are your real focus points on getting varieties and hybrids checked out there. And if you got any questions, reach out to your local agronomy advisor and ask them if they can come give you a hand with taking a look at it.

Nicholas Giessman 8:52

Thank you very much, Zach, for that update. I'd just like to reiterate kind of what he said there at the end. While we still have time, let's go out and check these fields, especially if you planted something in those planting dates. Get a hold of your agronomy advisor and get out there and look at these fields. So if you have to make a decision, we can make that decision timely. That's all for this week's Crop Talk by IAS. Thanks for tuning in. If any of our listeners have questions, feel free to email them to crop talk at innovativeag.com. Be sure to like, follow, and subscribe so you don't miss next week's update. And if you know a fellow grower who'd value a quick field snapshot, share this episode with them. For more agronomy resources and to connect with your local IAS team, visit InnovativeAg.com and follow Innovative Ag Services on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and LinkedIn. We'll catch you next week on Crop Talk.