how are your crops doing?

about 2 months ago,I would have said our corn looked lousy again, because it really did. The last month had been very hot, had some rain in mid July after we got our first crop more or less finished up the weekend of the 4th.

It started out cold and very wet as soon as the corn was in the ground. Came up yellow and overall looking poor. Now since we got the heat, things have dried up, and we still get the occasional rain shower, our corn looks pretty good. Not the best ever, but far from the worst I've ever seen also.

Cutting the second crop along one corn field, it's over my head when sitting on our Massey 285, so it looks pretty decent. The other field had been corn on corn for 3 years since we started renting out. Last year we finally got it covered good in manure then fall plowed. Out actually had a nice lookng crop this year. We should be able to chop corn in 5-6 weeks, and then we're hoping to turn around and put some winter wheat and rye in yet.

Right now we need to replace a bearing in one chopper box and do some more repairs to another, as well as try to get the chopper to reverse again. Can be a pain in corn without it....

Our first crop hay was thick and fairly decent. Second was pretty good too, although we could have taken it a week sooner had I not been working an extra weekend shift at work. We need some rain to make a good third crop, and then we'll decide if we'll bale it or chop it.

Overall, not a terrible year at all. I know some of you guys are wet like we were last year, while others are too dry.

How are you guys doing for the year?

Donovan from Wisconsin

Bad hail damage, lost 2/3 to 3/4 of berry crop, but look forward to next year, lots of new growth, ought to be great.

Hot here in Georgia, been in the 90's for several weeks and no rain, soybeans started blooming last week.

Everything looks good so far over here on the east side of the lake. The rain will have to keep up since we don't have any surplus of moisture,but I'm just waiting for the third cutting to grow right now.

In my little neck of the woods the crops as a whole couldn't look better.

n central illinois, had way too much rain, washed all the nitrogen out o the corn, mine fired a couple weeks ago. root structure is weak, prolly gonna need a reel on the combine when it goes down.

We look okay here in SE Iowa. Just Okay.

I had 40 acres of corn drown out right after planting in early May. I replanted it and it is still very poor from rains that followed the replanting. Also had about 10 acres of beans drown out that never got replanted.

There are pockets like that everywhere here.

We will have average yields if nothing else goes wrong.

We need some rain in mid August to get a good bean yield. It has turned off dry here lately.

Gary

We have an excellent crop of corn RIGHT here around Cascade. You go 20-30 miles away where they got heavier rains early and that corn is not looking as good. You can really tell right to the foot what ground was deep tilled last fall. Any compaction at all and the corn is very uneven. We could use some rain right now. We only got a 1/2 inch last week when those around us got 1-2 inches of rain. Bean have been blooming for weeks now and mostly look good too. So if we get timely rains we will have good to excellent yields here. The entire season is a few weeks ahead of normal. I wonder if we will have an early fall????

South Central Wis, crops here are in terrible condition, we haven't received 4" of rain since Memorial Day, corn is burned up, soybeans are dying rapidly, wheat was pretty good, had a good hay crop up till now, gonna be lots of farmers getting hurt with this situation. Those with irrigators look OK but are spending $ for water, LOL

First cut hay was thin, then the rains came, so you had to play the game with a 3 day window, but it seems subsequent cuttings could make up for it or help offset that dry spell in May.

Corn that I have seen, here and north of here in the mostly ag areas to the north looks really good. We had good planting weather at the right time. One field near me, that was all one field with big hill, which was leveled for a new state police barracks, has a remaining useable section, but it was all fill from the cut, was left fallow for years, then someone planted corn, did terrible, and there's no real topsoil given what was done. Not sure what they did there, that corn is incredible, was stressed from being dry earlier this week, we just got 2" of rain, in these soils that will last, seems overall, crops are doing as well as they can. I enjoy seeing all the farms and their crop fields, always looking when I can to see how things are growing. My small garden is growing the best I have ever seen it, cucumber leaves are 4x the size of my hand and then some, all the other plants are thriving, its amazing at what 6 weeks of growth can do in good soil with lots of nutrients.

south central Iowa corn looks good-beans not so good-still have some first cutting hay standing-should have been rolled up 6 weeks ago. Rained again last night. Was ask to put up 25 acres of hay last night that I've never seen-had to turn him down. Would normally have jumped at the chance but cant get around the rain. Weather man now says rain every other day this week. Sure wish you guys that need it were getting it.

Everything in my area, 50 miles North of Detroit, looks good. I just have a few acres of corn but I think it appears to look better than anything I've raised in allot of years. The neighbor's beans are looking good too.

I just returned from a 15 state tour on my motorcycle and was surprised at the water and storm damage I seen throughout the Mid West. Places where they normally have excellent looking crops this time of year didn't look so good. Other places where it is normally dry as a bone were really green.

Crops are pretty tough in northeast Missouri. We are above our annual rainfall already and it's only the first part of August. There are many fields that would have gone to beans that never got planted. There is some good corn but most is pretty bad. We've probably had 30 inches of rain since the first of May here. It was rare to go three days without rain. I thought one day I saw some animals starting to pair up. Mike

I've got 100 pods on my bean plants if that's any indication?

Excellent! Like my post on "Using your tractor" last week re a trip 3 hours south, 2 hours east, and back home.....really good looking crops all the way through. Here in Meeker County, Spring was wet and first cutting a bit light and rainy, but timely rains ever since. Not the prevented planting like last year. Definitely ahead of last year in all regards. Can"t remember such a good year.

Thought I would answer while these two old cousins were taking a well-earned break from the action:



Corn looks good, as does the first-year hay field.


And the grapes seem to be above average with a long way to go to full-sugar maturity. We could use more rain.

Semi beautiful Fox chopper on Craigs list (Madison)

Right. around this area the upper Wabash and Salamonie river basins south of Ft Wayne , crops are terrible . We had 20 inches of rain in June lots of fields under water and crops flooded out, quite a bit of prevent plant . The corn is horrendous , with the exception of the scattered fields that look really good that were out early and got the nitrogen used before the rains came. The rest are about 2- 3 feet tall yellow tasseled with taller spots where the tile are. The beans look tough but may still have a shot . Worst I have ever seen them around here in my 52 years. Get north of Ft Wayne and they look good.

weather in SE PA for last 2-3 weeks has been near perfect. High 80's and a thunder storm every 3-4 days. First cut hay was thin as hardly any spring rain after March. 2nd
cut was weedy & bug bit (leaf hoppers) as the rain wouldn't stop. Funny, 10 years ago we had 3-4 dry summers in a row. Now more rain than normal. Oh well.

I'm in western WI and all i can say is its been a few years since crops looked this good.

(quoted from post at 18:43:01 08/05/15) Semi beautiful Fox chopper on Craigs list (Madison)

Click to expand...

If you're pointing me at it, we ain't interested. It's bad enough we have 2 Gehl wagons that are getting hard to find parts for. Fox is dam near impossible to find what you need anymore. We retired a Fox 3000 a couple years ago in favor of a New Holland 892. Can handle all the horsepower our 1855 puts out and then some, and the price was right.

Donovan from Wisconsin