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Crop Tour: Nebraska corn down 14%

August 22, 2012 By Leave a Comment

The Pro Farmer Midwest Crop Tour projects Nebraska’s corn crop will be down 14 percent and soybeans down 30 percent from last year’s tour projections.

Those figures include both irrigated and non-irrigated fields.

Chris Woerner, a field agronomist for Pioneer in southeast Nebraska, says dryland corn yields will vary widely from field to field and within fields—anywhere from 15 to 110 bushels.  But, considering the year…

“I think there’s going to be a lot of pleasant surprises out there on dryland,” Woerner says. “I mean there’s going to be some 90 to 110—I guess if that’s pleasant.  But for the year and what the stuff’s went through, it looked pretty good.”

But Woerner says a lot of the irrigated corn could be in the 200 to 220 bushel range.

“Most of southeast Nebraska, as long as we had plenty of water and weren’t in a water-limiting istuation with our wells, really looks pretty good overall,” he says. “So I think there’s going to be, maybe, not quite the high yield levels we’re used to—but I think overall we’re going to have some pretty good average irrigated yields that we’re going to be pretty happy with.”

Woerner says soybean yields will be all over the board.

“I think maturity is going to make a big deal on soybeans this year.  If we can hold on and get some of these late rains maybe in the next week to two (weeks), I think some of the longer-season soybeans—those 3.5-4.0 maturities—are actually probably going to have a little bit of an advantage over some of the shorter-season stuff.,” he says.

“On those longer season maturities—even on dryland—there are little pods up top.  Whether they stretch out and make beans is yet to be determined.”

The western branch of the crop tour is in western Iowa today (Wednesday), while the eastern leg travels through western Illinois and southeast Iowa.

AUDIO: Chris Woerner (6:00 MP3)

 

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More variability on the eastern leg

August 22, 2012 By Leave a Comment

As the Pro Farmer Midwest Crop Tour made its way into Illinois yesterday Eastern Leg lead and Pro Farmer Market Analyst Brian Grete says scouts saw some a variety of conditions in Eastern Illinois. “There were some good yields that came out of areas and then there were some really poor yields that came out of those areas that have really, really good soils that historically produce really well,” he says.

On his route yesterday, Grete says they made their way through fields that are in typically high yield producing counties.  “We went through Livingston, Ford, McLean, and Champaign counties,” he says.  “We really came up with some disappointing yields in some of those areas – it was a crop that was short and stressed.”

To that end – Grete says there were fields along the northern routes that should yield well.  “There was extreme variability, not only county to county but also field to field and within each field,” he says.  The extreme variability is one of the things Grete says they are seeing a lot of this year.  That, he says, makes pegging precise numbers more difficult this year.

The Pro Farmer Midwest Crop tour will release its Illinois estimates later on this evening.

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Crop Tour has Indiana corn yield down 21 percent

August 21, 2012 By Leave a Comment

For the second day in a row – the word variability was the best way to describe the Pro Farmer Midwest Crop Tour.  Brian Grete, Senior Market Analyst with Pro Farmer and the Eastern Leg lead says yield estimates in Indiana were drastically lower than a year ago.  “The final yield calculation for the state of Indiana came in at 113.25, down 20.9 percent from last year’s totals,” he says.  “On soybeans, in a 3’x3’ square – the total came in at 1,033.24, down 9 percent from a year ago.”

The tour tracks through the central and northern portions of the state – excluding some of the areas hardest hit by this year’s drought. 

Grete says while those fields aren’t reflected in the state average – they will be figured in when Pro Farmer releases their numbers on Friday.  “We will take in the crop tour data in to account and then we will also factor in other areas that we did not sample,” he says.  “All of those areas will be factored together when we figure up the Pro Farmer Crop Tour Estimate released Friday at 2:00pm CST.”

Today the Eastern Leg of the tour will make its way into Western Illinois and Eastern Iowa.

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Culling continues in leading cow-calf state

August 21, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Heat stress isn’t over for cattle and the President of the Missouri Cattlemen’s Association says they are seeing the consequences.  Lonnie Duckworth is a cow-calf producer in southwest Missouri’s Bates County. He tells Brownfield Ag News, “The thing that we’re seeing right now is that there are some fall calving cows that are starting to – we’re seeing some abortions because of heat stress and so forth. We’re seeing some deaths because of heat stress.”

Duckworth says there are additional concerns, “We fear, too, that the spring calf crop may be much lighter than normal because the bulls and the cows basically have shut down as far as breeding. Of course, we have bulls in with our cows right now and have had probably since May.”

The culling continues, says Duckworth, “They’re trying to, you know, trying to weed out the – cull out the poor producers. And then they’re probably going to cull open cows and hopefully they don’t have to get into the heart of their herd, but some are.”

As a result, Duckworth says things are “a little grumpy in the countryside” but cattle producers will get through this drought, “We’re not just being picked on – we are always subject to weather extremes and conditions. So, we learn how to live with them. And we’ll learn how to live with this, too, and beyond this….for those producers that want to stay in business.”

The U.S. cattle herd is at record lows, similar to those of the late 1940s and early ‘50s. Missouri is the nation’s second largest cow-calf producing state, behind Texas.

AUDIO: Lonnie Duckworth interview at MO State Fair (8:00 mp3)

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ICMC encourages farmers to be proactive

August 21, 2012 By Leave a Comment

With all 92 of Indiana’s counties designated primary or contiguous disaster areas by USDA, Indiana Corn Marketing Council is reminding farmers to be prepared in case they have to deal with grain quality issues during harvest.  Because if this year’s weather – one major concern this fall is aflatoxin.

Rosalind Leeck, director of grain marketing for ICMC says it doesn’t hurt for farmers to be proactive.  “If you do think you could have aflatoxin in your grain – it would be good to have it tested,” she says.  “In many cases, crop insurance wants you to have it tested before you even harvest the grain.”

Leeck also suggest farmers should be talking with their grain buyers.  “We would encourage farmers to just have that open dialog,” she says.  “It has been a challenging year in many aspects.”  To ensure everyone is on the same page, Leeck says communicating issues with crop insurance agents and grain buyers means fewer surprises when delivering grain.

Leeck tells Brownfield the RMA has put together information for growers dealing with grain quality issues. 

Click HERE for more information.

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Getting inside Indiana fields

August 21, 2012 By Leave a Comment

As the Pro Farmer Midwest Crop Tour made its way into the Eastern part of Indiana yesterday crop conditions did not appear to get any better.  Brian Grete Sr. Market Analyst for Pro Farmer and the Eastern leg tour leader the corn crop in general was just very short.  “The ear numbers are going to be down (most likely),” he says.  “I can’t see any way they are going to be higher than they were last year. “  Grete says they were into a lot of fields that had pollination issues and fields that had very small ears that were stunted due to the heat stress and lack of moisture.

When they release Indiana’s numbers later today – Grete anticipates more shocking, but not surprising numbers.  “When all is said and done – and we have the Indiana numbers,” he says.  “I suspect we’ll see something very similar to what we found in Ohio – and they’ll be down significantly from a year ago.”

The estimates from Pro Farmer for Indiana will be released this evening.

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Consider palpating beef cows

August 21, 2012 By Leave a Comment

With the combination of the summer heat and the high cost of feed, John Grimes, Extension beef coordinator at the Ohio State University recommends cow-calf producers palpate this fall.

“What concerns me is the heat we had in late June and first half of July,” said Grimes. “It would not surprise me if we see lower conception rates and I think just a sound practice would be to palpate them and cull out problems if you’ve got them, I just think we can’t afford to put expensive feed in an open cow.”

The Extension beef coordinator says palpating is a practice often underutilized by cow-calf producers.

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Early weaning cuts feed use in cows

August 21, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Cattle producers are looking to save on feed use however they can, given the strain the drought has put on feed sources. Early weaning of calves is one way to cut feed use in cows.

“If you wean that calf,” Sexten tells Brownfield Ag News, “You can save a half a pound of forage per 100 pounds of cow body weight. So, on a 13-hundred pound cow that’s essentially six-and-a-half pounds of forage a day.”

That’s Justin Sexten, Missouri Extension specialist for beef nutrition. He tells Brownfield that early weaning gives cows a chance to start recovering from lactation, potentially putting on more body condition before the next calf.

“If the cow’s not lactating,” he says, “She doesn’t require as high a quality of forage. So, now I have more forage available – I can use a poorer quality forage.”

Sexten says that unless calves are weaned prior to the end of the breeding season, producers won’t see an increase in conception rates.

AUDIO: Justin Sexten (13:00 mp3)

Drought related issues in forage, sileage and baleage

University of Missouri Extension By-Products Feed locator

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Corn harvest has begun in some areas of IN

August 20, 2012 By Leave a Comment

According to the latest report released from the Indiana Field Office of the National Ag Statistics Service Indiana’s corn crop continues to advance as harvest has begun in some areas of the state. Ninety-one percent of the state’s corn acreage is in the dough stage; 58 percent in the dent stage; and 9 percent of the corn acreage is mature. Seventy percent of Indiana’s corn crop is in poor to very poor condition while just 9 percent is rated good to excellent.

Ninety-four percent of the state’s soybean acreage is setting pods compared to 70 percent a year ago and four percent of state’s crop has begun to shed leaves. Soybean condition continues to improve as 20 percent of the crop is now rated good to excellent and 45 percent is called poor to very poor.

Rainfall last week helped improve drought conditions across some of the state. Experts hope the moisture helped to slow spider mite activity and hope it will reduce the amount of aflatoxin in the corn crop. Soil moisture has also improved again this week. Seventy-three percent of the top soil moisture is now short to very short and 27 percent adequate but 87 percent of the subsoil moisture is short to very short and 13 percent adequate.

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Crop tour finds a lot of variability in Nebraska fields

August 20, 2012 By Leave a Comment

The 2012 Pro Farmer Midwest Crop Tour got underway Monday. 

Participants in the week-long tour are sampling fields all across the central U.S., trying to get a better handle on the size of this year’s corn and soybean crops.

Pioneer field agronomist Jeff Mueller has been scouting in central Nebraska.  He says most of the dryland corn has either been chopped or baled. 

As for the irrigated corn, Mueller says it will be extremely variable.

“The yields are going to be all over the board—anywhere from 150 to 250 bushel corn,” he says

Mueller says dryland soybeans won’t yield much, but irrigated soybeans could be making a bit of a comeback.

“We lost some pods earlier—or basically, some flowers—when we had that really hot heat and that wind, but we’ve been able to get a second bloom of flowers coming on.  And we get into some of these fields and we’ve got some nice pod sets going on—so again, as with the corn, it’s going to be all over the board.”

Mueller says the cooler temperatures of the past couple of weeks are going to help the later-planted and later-maturing corn.

“It’s allowing it more time for some grain-fill—to put in more test weight—make a little bit deeper kernels,” he says.

The crop tour will continue into Friday, at which time Pro Farmer will release its national-average yield and production estimates for both corn and soybeans.

AUDIO: Jeff Mueller (7:34 MP3)

 

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