Ohio crops progressing, but rain would be welcome

Derek Niese – Putnam County

We’ve been trending to the dry side lately, and we could really use a rain. There are some chances in the forecast, so we’ll see what happens. Even with the drier conditions, things are progressing pretty well around the farm.

We’re at the tail end of blackberry picking, and the raspberries are finished for the season. We’ve already removed the old raspberry canes, and now the new canes for next year are starting to grow. We’re also getting ready for tomato harvest, which is probably just a few weeks away. There’s been a lot of irrigating to keep those tomatoes going with the dry weather.

In the row crops, fungicide applications are finished on most of the corn except for a couple of our later-planted fields. The soybeans are about the same. Overall, everything has been moving along as expected.

We have had to touch up a couple of soybean fields where the residual herbicide didn’t hold. In one field, I got it planted early, then it turned wet, and I wasn’t able to get the residual applied, so we had to go back and clean up the weeds. Other than that, there really haven’t been many issues. We’ve seen a little disease in the tomatoes, but nothing out of the normal.

For now, we’re just hoping to catch a good rain and keep everything moving forward.

Greg Ramsey – Ross County

Overall, things are looking pretty good here. The soybeans are progressing well. We’ve been fortunate this summer. We haven’t had excessive amounts of rain, but we’ve had enough that the crops really haven’t looked stressed, other than earlier this spring. Disease pressure still seems to be low, and we put fungicide on the corn about two weeks ago, so we’ve got that protection in place. We’re still evaluating the soybeans to see what, if anything, needs to be done. There are some late weeds coming through, mostly grasses and a little volunteer corn, that we’ll need to get cleaned up.

Our double-crop soybeans are starting to take off as well. They’re getting to the point where the fields are looking more green than straw-colored, so we’re starting to see some canopy develop.

All in all, it’s been a pretty positive growing season to this point. Maybe it’s the pessimist in me, but I’m always waiting for the other shoe to drop after the last couple of years. Hopefully this is the year everything comes together. For now, we’re just getting ready for fall, getting ready for our county fair and the kids going back to school, mowing field edges, and trying to keep everything looking good.

Matt Hartong – Summit County

Things have been going pretty well on our farm, although it has definitely turned dry. We finished our third cutting of hay, and that was really the last major field job we’ve had. Since then, we’ve mostly been keeping an eye on the corn and soybeans. We sprayed some soybeans, and the weed control has been pretty successful, so those fields are looking pretty good.

Everything still looks really good. Corn has been tasseling for a few weeks. I feel like it’s been a pretty standard growing season overall. We aren’t seeing much disease or pest pressure, but I think an inch or two of rain would make all the difference. That could be the difference between an okay crop and a pretty good crop. We are still in that window where we need that precipitation to make the crop.

The dairy herd is doing well overall. Like a lot of dairy farms this time of year, we’re dealing with a few heat-related challenges after the stretch of 100-degree heat indexes around the Fourth of July, but that’s pretty standard for summer.

Melissa Clark – Miami County

Overall, the crops are looking good. Corn is in the R2 stage and moving into R3, while the soybeans range anywhere from R3 to R5. The earlier planted beans are starting to seed, and the replanted beans are just beginning to pod.

We’ve had about 2.5 inches of rain this month, but most of that came over the last 10 days. It had been really hot and dry a couple of weeks ago, so we really, really needed that rain, and it came at a good time. Now we’re hoping to catch another measurable rain while avoiding the damaging winds that are in the forecast.

Aerial fungicide applications started last week and will probably continue through this week. During the next dry spell, we’ll also be working on making hay.

We really aren’t seeing anything notable when it comes to disease pressure. We did have some weed pressure earlier in the season after that really wet stretch in May and early June, but once we were able to get everything sprayed, we got ahead of it. At this point, there isn’t anything disease-wise that we’re majorly concerned about.

Outside of the fields, our county fair is only a few weeks away, so we’re spending a lot of time in the barn working calves and pigs.