Derek Niese – Putnam County

There are quite a few operations cutting beans around me, and a handful of guys are already running corn. From what I’m hearing, yields sound pretty respectable so far. We haven’t run any corn or beans yet because we’re still trying to finish up with tomato harvest. We’ve got about a week left to go there. For us, we could probably start cutting beans by the end of this week, just going by how the leaves are falling and how they’re turning.

As harvest approaches, I’ve been checking a lot of our corn fields, and I did not see any mold or anything growing on the ends of the ears. I’ve seen pictures from supposedly around my area that looked pretty ugly, including some ears where the kernels were sprouting, but I have not seen that in any of our fields. We did apply fungicide, although kernels sprouting would have nothing to do with that application.… Continue reading

Derek Niese – Putnam County

Things are going well here, other than we could use a little less rain right now. We’ve been fighting mud while harvesting tomatoes, and at the moment we’re not harvesting because of the rain. Up until now it had been fairly dry, and tomato harvest has been going decently. Yield-wise, tomatoes are really not much different from last year, which is somewhat surprising considering we’ve had more rain this season.

Across the way, corn and soybeans are all turning, and I’m seeing some late tar spot moving into a lot of corn fields. Most of the fields I’ve looked at have some presence of it. I think it’s late enough in the game that many fields won’t see much impact, but there are some earlier fields where it will probably hurt yields a little bit.

As for our operation, we won’t start harvesting corn or soybeans until tomatoes are finished.… Continue reading

Derek Niese – Putnam County

Things are moving along pretty good over here. On the vegetable side, we’re harvesting tomatoes, and they’re all starting to turn red. We don’t really want them all to turn red at once. We’d like to stretch that harvest out into October if we can. On the crop side of things, the beans are looking good. For the corn, some of the earlier planted fields are starting to burn up. Around here, I think some fields could probably be shelled in two or three weeks.

As far as pest and disease pressure goes, everything seems under control in the tomatoes. In some of the earlier planted corn fields, I’ve noticed what looks like tar spot showing up. I’m not sure whether that’s related to spraying, not spraying, specific hybrids, or just the fact that those fields are getting older and starting to dry down. At this point, it’s hard to say exactly what’s driving it.… Continue reading

Dere Niese – Putnam County 

Things are going pretty well here, and the good news is we’re harvesting tomatoes, and it’s not muddy. I can’t really say there’s much bad to report. Overall, we’re doing all right. 

In the last two weeks, we probably received somewhere between 4 and 5 inches of rain across most of our area. At the same time, you didn’t have to go very far north or south to find areas that got much more. We heard reports of places receiving up to ten inches, and that’s just too much rain. We were fortunate to avoid some of those heavier rain events. 

The wet conditions and humidity have brought some disease pressure. In our tomato crop, disease has set in across most of our fields. Some fields are worse than others, and the rain is definitely going to take some yield off the tomatoes. In corn, I’ve noticed a little disease on the lower leaves in a couple of fields, but I don’t think it’s going to result in a terrible yield hit.… Continue reading

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.… Continue reading

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.… Continue reading

Ohio’s Country Journal and Ohio Ag Net caught up with our Between the Rows farmers before the Independence Day holiday to see how crops were progressing.

Derek Niese – Putnam County

Things have been staying busy. Wheat harvest is underway, although we’ve only managed to combine a little bit so far as we wait for grain moisture to come down. Our wheat is still around 18% moisture, but plenty of neighbors have already been running combines, so hopefully we’ll be able to make more progress today and tomorrow.

Once wheat harvest wraps up, we’ll bale a few straw bales for some steers, but most of the straw will go back on the field. We typically like to double-crop soybeans after wheat, but this year timing will determine what happens. We’re planning to apply hog manure to this field. If we don’t get the double crop in, we’ll likely seed a cover crop and call it a day.… Continue reading

Derek Niese – Putnam County

Things have been going well the last couple of weeks. I have been busy. The corn is all side-dressed, we started picking the black and red raspberries last week, and I have been side-dressing tomatoes and laying drip tape. We have been doing a little bit of everything.

Overnight, we received anywhere from seven-tenths to an inch of rain, and we needed it. It was time for some rain around here.

Overall, everything looks like it is growing really well. I cannot complain. It is kind of funny because we have corn that is only to the middle of my calf, and we have corn that is head high already. It just shows the difference in everything this year, but that is the spring we were given, so that is how it’s turned out.

We have a field of wheat, and it looks like it could be a little early, but it will probably be right on time like normal.… Continue reading

Derek Niese- Putnam County

Things are going pretty well. Corn and soybeans are all planted, and we’ve been side-dressing our early corn. The crop looks pretty good, and overall, everything is progressing the way we’d like to see it.

We do have more rain in the forecast, and I think it’s going to be needed. Right now, crops are growing pretty well, and some timely moisture would help keep that momentum going.

We had one field of corn where we had to do a little spot replanting, but other than that, everything looks pretty nice, to be honest.

In addition to the row crops, we’re continuing our tomato planting schedule. We stagger plantings throughout the season, so every week we’ve got a certain number of acres and varieties that need to go in the ground. We’re already about halfway through this week’s planting and are working to finish the rest before the next rain arrives.… Continue reading

Derek Niese – Putnam County

Things are wet again, and we have more rain coming, but last week we had three or four, maybe four and a half days where we could get back in the fields. I think a lot of guys around here got a lot of work done, but now we are back in the waiting game again.

If I had to guess, I would say most everyone around here is probably 75% to 85% done planting. We are about the same. We probably have one big day of corn planting and one big day of bean planting left. Tomatoes are just a little bit behind schedule, but not too bad. Next week, we have three big days of planting to catch up, and I would say we are in a pretty good spot right now.

We also have one 45-acre wheat field. It looks good, but wheat isn’t a major part of our rotation.… Continue reading

Derek Niese – Putnam County

The last couple of weeks have been cold and wet, and things have moved pretty slowly around here. Right now, we are just waiting on some heat and sunshine to get things growing again.

We are probably about half done with planting corn and soybeans at this point. Most of the corn that was planted has emerged, but it came up looking a little yellow and has mostly just been sitting there waiting for warmer weather. We also had some patchy frost a couple of weeks ago. We had a few soybean fields that had already emerged, but fortunately, it was a fairly light frost, and I do not think it caused much damage.

On the specialty crop side, we were originally scheduled to start planting tomatoes last Saturday, but conditions have simply been too cold and wet to get started. As soon as things dry up, though, we will be hammered down and moving quickly.… Continue reading

Derek Niese – Putnam County

Things are going pretty good on our farm right now. We are probably halfway done with corn and soybean planting, which is pretty far along for this time of year in our area. I cannot complain. It is kind of dry right now, and they are calling for rain and colder weather, so we are just kind of chilling out and seeing what happens.

As far as the drought talk goes, I would say northwest Ohio has improved. We had a lot of water last month, and there are still spots with water lying in the low areas. It is hard to say you are in a drought when water is piled up in those places. But this is northwest Ohio, and we could be dry again in two weeks just like that.

We pretty much no-till all of our corn and soybeans. When we start planting tomatoes in a couple of weeks, we field cultivate ahead of that, but we do not do a lot of heavy tillage, especially in the spring.… Continue reading