This is why I haven't posted in such a long time...
I have been swamped with work lately, because mother nature decided to throw a curveball at midwestern farmers and turn off the faucet for months. The cornbelt has turned into a desert spotted with sad fields of rolled up corn. The top picture shows corn picked from one of my customers fields. These ears are from Posey County, Indiana. This picture tells a thousand words of how bad things really are in the fields. The filled out ears came off of some of his flat black dirt, these ears look pretty well, even though the tipping back indicates poor pollination. If a field was full of ears that looked like this then he would probably yield 120 bushels to the acre. But the problem is...the ears on the right. All the corn planted on sandy hillsides in Posey County is burned up and the ears look like this. A field full of ears like this will virtually yield nothing. Even the ears that have 10 - 20 kernels won't amount to anything because those ears will fall right through the corn head on the combine.
The second picure shows a field right off of 41 about ten miles north of Vincennes. This is pretty much how all the fields in southwestern Indiana look...not good.
The government has finally woken up and declared the drought a natural diaster in 26 states and more than 1000 counties. You can read more about that by clicking here. Commodity prices still haven't skyrocketed, but that can be expected during and after harvest.
The United States hasn't seen a drought this bad, or this widespread since 1988. Farmers who have protected their operations this year with crop insurance will be happy they did so.
I am off the the Tipton County Fair to work at the Pedal Pull!
Until next time!
The second picure shows a field right off of 41 about ten miles north of Vincennes. This is pretty much how all the fields in southwestern Indiana look...not good.
The government has finally woken up and declared the drought a natural diaster in 26 states and more than 1000 counties. You can read more about that by clicking here. Commodity prices still haven't skyrocketed, but that can be expected during and after harvest.
The United States hasn't seen a drought this bad, or this widespread since 1988. Farmers who have protected their operations this year with crop insurance will be happy they did so.
I am off the the Tipton County Fair to work at the Pedal Pull!
Until next time!
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