By Dar Danielson (Radio Iowa)

Labor Day marks the end of summer when kids are back in school and farmers are making plans to harvest.

State Ag Secretary Mike Naig says the end of the drought has expectations high. “All indications are, is that we’re looking at a sizable corn and soybean crop this year,” he says. Naig says there’s never 100% perfect conditions across the state, and that’s evident again this year. “There are places that that certainly because of severe weather flooding, northwest Iowa in particular, some parts of southern Iowa that actually, believe it or not, got dry again and and so you’re going to have some variability in in some places across the state,” Naig says.

He says those areas seeing weather impact don’t bring down the lofty harvest projections. “By and large, we’re hearing about a really good crop. In fact, we may be looking at some record yields in places, and possibly even near or record corn and soybean crops in the state of Iowa,” he says. Naig says there’s some hope that the growing season will extend later into the fall. “You know, it was a bit delayed at spring planting. So I think there’s plenty of folks that are saying, we sure could use a long fall. But then again, there’s gonna be some folks that go right on schedule,” Naig says. “So I would say the word that you’ve got to use for the crop this year’s is variability.”

Naig says there’s moisture in the ground and the conditions are good right now for the corn and soybeans to mature.