Not very scientific crop survey.

[300UGUY]

My wife and I took a ride today, stopping and looking at different farmer's crops. The corn looked short everywhere, and the ears looked to be very short and thin. The soybeans looked pretty good, canopied over nicely, lots of pods with beans visible in the pods. One hayfield looked good, we have had some rain lately. Looks like it was too late for the corn crop, ok for the other crops. I am not a farmer or trained ag guy. I am curious about this stuff, so I thought I'd look at things. Have a good one!!

 

[keegs]

Here in NJ weather has been normal, maybe a tad wetter than usual. The corn is doing well. Local corn and tomatoes are widely available. I remember we had dry summer about seven or eight years ago here. The corn fields were stunted and many were a complete loss...it seemed. Last year the weather around our place in ME was very wet during May and June which is the planting season for potatoes. I was surprised by how late the seeds went in and how they managed to get a decent harvest.

I'm sure farmers are pros at dealing with variables like the weather, disease, commodity price fluctuations etc. or they wouldn't stay in business. And they get allot of help. When a fungus attacked the potato crop last year up in northern ME, the local University (affiliated with the extension service) quickly identified the problem and recommended remediation steps. Then there's crop insurance, subsidies....

I imagine if weather extremes continue it will mean higher food prices.. so maybe more of us will be motivated to learn how to grow food. Which reminds me of the delicious zucchini/eggplant parm I made from home grown zucchini, tomato and basil ..that we had for dinner last night....mmmmmmm...

 

[dmccarty]

Last summer, we did a couple of short tips to GA that had us traveling on the back roads of NC. We had a pretty bad drought last year and the corn was showing the lack of water. This year, we repeated the GA trips, on the same roads, and the corn was doing much, much better. Night and day difference. I also noticed one of the farms had installed a big irrigation well.

Later,
Dan

 

[BrianDT]

Being 2 hours north of Howell, I see a lot of good signs. Our corn is well over 6' tall. Our wheat was short due to the lack of rain, but still yielded 94-96 bushels to the acre. It was also dry enough to harvest July 1st, so most fields were double cropped with soy beans. There is no doubt it has been dry, but we have had just enough to keep things going.

If we go 2 hours east into the thumb, the corn fields are 4-5' tall and yellow.

Corn is just over $8 per bushel, so I am hoping for a good yield and if we keep getting the rain we are, it will be a great year.