August moisture keeps crops moving

Derek Niese – Putnam

Things are going pretty good. We got some rain yesterday and last Friday, and it sounds like we could get a lot more rain this week. I guess that should make some corn and beans. Everything is green and growing.

The tomatoes look pretty decent. They’re starting to turn red, and we’ll start harvest next week. We have two older harvesters, and we’ve gone through both of them and have them hooked up and ready to go. We also have about 18 trailers, so we went through those and got everything ready. We checked the electronic sorters on both harvesters that help sort out the rocks, dirt, and green tomatoes. There’s just a pile of equipment we have to go through every year, and we’re pretty much ready to go.

I walked into one of our later-planted corn fields right before this call to see how it looked. There’s just a touch of tar spot on the lower leaves, but it doesn’t look bad. It’s nothing I haven’t seen before, and I’m sure it’ll be a nice corn field when we harvest it.

We had a couple tenths of rain last night, and last Thursday or Friday I think we had about an inch. I hope we don’t get the 2 to 5 inches they’re talking about this week, especially with tomato harvest coming, but if we do, we’ll figure it out.

Greg Ramsey – Ross County

Our crops are pretty outstanding at the moment. At my home, we’ve had about an inch and a half of rain so far this month, which is a total we would normally be excited to get for the entire month of August. It’s been a pretty good month as far as rainfall goes.

The corn is still green and, at this point, we’re probably putting on test weight. I haven’t peeled back ears to see exactly where we are, but it’s still being productive. The beans have a lot of pods on them. If we keep getting a couple more rains here at the end of the month and maybe one in early September, I think we could really be in a good spot to have a pretty awesome crop.

The only downside to the rain is the weeds are trying to poke through here and there, but overall, we’ve got pretty good control. Things look really good, especially compared to the last two years.

We walked the soybeans last week just to get an idea of what’s out there, and everything looks fairly clean. We don’t typically put fungicide on our soybeans, but we did some trials this year just to test it out and see what we thought.

Other than that, we’re continuing to get ready for fall, getting equipment and grain bins ready and keeping field edges mowed. We’re very thankful this year.

Matt Hartong – Summit County

Things have been going okay. Right now, we are seeding alfalfa. We’re running a little bit behind on that, but we’ve got about 25 acres that we’re going to seed here shortly. That’s kind of the current project we’re working on.

We’re still hoping for a little bit of moisture. I still think this crop needs a couple inches to fill out some ears of corn and get the soybeans where we’d like to see them. Beyond that, everything has been going very smoothly and as planned. I’m still pretty hopeful about the way things look in the field.

We got about a half inch of rain during the last week and did get some rain last night. Looking at the forecast, there’s a good chance for rain, so we’re hoping we get the rain we’ve been expecting. It’s all about waiting for those weather events and hopefully you get them when you need them, because it can be the difference between an okay crop and a good crop.
We’re not seeing anything out of the ordinary with weed or pest pressure. This year, we contracted with a drone operator for some of our weed control in the soybeans. We were a little skeptical about how effective it was going to be, but it worked out great. The soybeans look really good, just as if we were to spray them ourselves. It’s definitely an interesting technology that is very promising.

Melissa Clark – Miami County

Things are going well. We were able to get hay made about a week ago, so we had a nice dry stretch in there to get that done. The aerial fungicide application is all completed now, and we’re kind of just holding steady. There’s not a ton going on right now.

We’ll probably continue to scout fields here and see how everything is looking. It was dry last week and obviously got hot there at the end of the week, too, so I’m hoping we catch a few of these rain chances during the next 10 days that they’re calling for.

As far as disease, weed, or pest pressure, we’ve been checking and there’s nothing crazy. I’m sure there’s the occasional weed, but nothing that we’re genuinely concerned about at this point.

It almost feels like we’re waiting for the other shoe to drop because things are going well. Obviously, we had some things at the beginning of the year with a lot of replant, but now we’re wondering what’s going to happen next.

As far as farm stuff goes, there’s just not a ton going on over here right now, and we’ll take it for sure.