pics from the last corn field

It has been a year of firsts and today was no different. The forecast was for a warm sunny day, it never came. With one field of corn still to plant and the weathermen saying a chance of rain on 8 of the next 10 days it was now or never.



This ground was worked on saturday evening and had about a two tenths of an inch shower sunday at daylight and a half inch of rain on it about 3 am monday. It wasnt dry as you can tell but on the 9th of June my standards for dry enough are a little different than they were a month ago. It wasnt pretty but it is done.

This leaves a 80 of beans to plant conventionally and another 25 of beans to no-till. My friend travis was helping us work the 80. I sent him to do it without going to look at it and it was too wet. He hit a wet spot and when he raised the culitvator the lift bracket ripped off the cultivator and sunk the culitvator into the ground leaving the tractor stuck in the mud and the culitvator broken He called and told me I told him just to get ahold of cliff I was not going to stop planting. When I got done planting I went and had a look.


They ended up getting the local welding shop guy to come fix the cultivator. He spent about an hour welding it up good as new and cliff drove it out of the hole about 8pm tonight. We did get to finish the corn and that seems like a big relief at this point. The forecast is rain rain rain. A neighbor stopped last night and has given up planting some fields that should have been planted to corn and is going to take the crop insurance money and leave some ground idle. Yesterday on the radio they said that we have had the wetest spring in history here. Three inches more rain than ever before. All things considered we are doing ok but it sure is a struggle!
bill

Bill, We went through the same type of spring last year as you are having in 2009. It seemed like the pain would never end, but it did turn out pretty well once the crop got started even though it was all very late coming up. Hang in there, I admire you for posting pictures of what has to be a very trying situation. [I remember well] Just do what you do best, and the sun will shine eventually.

Bill: I really enjoy your posts. I am eighty years old and can remember situation like you have, all you can do is laugh and reorganize.
gitrib

You're wishing. You know it's too wet to plant. The old gauge of "can you ball up a habdfull of dirt"?
Get out of there and get some 80 day seed.

Gordo

Bill: here is how 2008 went here. Got the corn in--for the first time-on May 31. Planted it too wet, but it kept raining and the clods "melted" and we had good stands. In 1990 we mudded in corn on June 2nd and shortly thereafter it quit raining, and it was a BIG mistake--should have waited. So mudding it in is a BIG crapshoot. 2008 was cool and wet all summer, with no frost until November. I spent more on propane than it takes us to live for the year--I sure wish I had all that $$ back!!. We didn't start combining corn until Oct 22, and it was in the high 20's then. I don't know how we could have waited any longer, as we BARELY got done before winter set in--picked for several days in the snow. Some years we are nearly done by Oct 22. Corn made 155-160. I replanted corn as late as June 22 (we had ponds of 5+ acres everywhere--I ended up using 20 bags of 75 day corn to replant them). The ponds had to be left until after Thanksgiving as they were 35% when we began in late October. They ended up making 100 bu according to the yield monitor--but I think we lucked out--they would have been fodder with a normal fall freeze date.

Finished sb on June 24. "Normal" management made mid 30's. Got creative on some of the last-planted fields, sprayed foliar fert, insecticide, and fungicide, and got 46 bu.
June 1 planted beans made 50 and June 24th "normal" management made mid 30's, so that delay was huge in terms of yield.

It was the summer that wasn't--we sprayed beans in August, and never caught up. Many small things like mowing waterways and spraying fencerows simply weren't done. The drying bill on the corn was horrendous.
WE survived on a BIG insurance check. I hope you have a high level of insurance--then you will be ok. GRIP payed the best, but they don't pay you until the following spring--which is a LONG time to pay interest while waiting for the insurance check.
Prepare yourself for just slogging through 2009 with the knowledge that you did all you could, and that 2010 will be much better. Prepare yourself mentally for the "wait" you will have to do in the fall--you cannot afford to go out and pick corn in early October like you will want to--the corn will be 10 points wetter than you are used to. Delay any unnecessary expenditures and keep your head up! The rising grain prices are helping you--maybe more than the weather is hurting you--especially if you have a high level of crop insurance.

On Sunday of Memorial day weekend I sent cousin's son-in-law up to the house with this message "When plantin' beans in no-till, if the back wheels on the 1466 slip going up the hill and the planter drive wheels are flippin' mud up on the frame, it is to dang wet (I didn't say dang) Cousin said "Plant em anyway! - the weather is too good and rain is on the way." We got lucky with the "mud-it-in gamble", it did rain on Tuesday of the next week and the slots closed up. We've got good stands corn and soybeans (east Central Indiana on rolling ground) but a lot of guys 30 miles west of here have had a lot more rain on flat ground that will need to be replanted. We are getting more rain today so we are thankful we are in the ground as we have planted in June before (1978, 1981, 1996) and it ain't no fun. We finished harvest in 1996 a week before Thanksgiving, but had a good production crop. You can't win, the weather in 1998 was probably the best I've ever seen, we planted all in mid-May when the ground was warm, grew a beautiful crop, it rained a lot in August and September finishing the beans to where the stalks were up the armpits on a grown man (some of them went over from being so big), made 60 to 65 bushel and that year beans were down to about $4.00. That was the same fall hogs went to nothing and cousin got out of the pig business for good - but now he is 61 and I am 47 and every spring we throw it back in the ground. Our grandpa used to tell about a late June hard freeze in the 20s - they lost the crop (all of it, especially the corn), but survived the loss and went on to farm another 60 years. Best of luck to you - hope you get planted and have a bountiful harvest this fall.

You hit the nail square on the head. I could worry my self to death but that wouldnt help anything.
No matter what happens with this crop next spring we will do it all again. Other than this last corn field our corn is all up, has nice stands, really looks good, is growing like crazy and most of it is sprayed. With only a few beans left to plant we will get them sooner or later. We do have crop insurance but unless the market prices drop I dont expect our crops to be poor enough to really collect much. I talked with the agronomist I work with before I planted this corn. We discussed alot of different scenarios. I ran the numbers comparing planting beans instead of corn and it looks like the odds still favored planting corn. He felt confident we should still be able to pull at least 160 bpa off of this field with good hybrid selection and some intense managemnet and scouting. With fall corn being 4.40 at the elevator that seemed like a good gamble to take.
It has been tough at times but I am still finding ways to laugh about what we are dealing with.
bill

Now you need the rain to keep things going Bill.

Lets hope you don't get this much.

This is flood waters that backed up into mine from the Coralville Reservoir one year ago tomorrow. Thought this bin was gonna go under. Never did but I emptied that bin of beans before it went under.

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my corn and beans are finally in, dang goofy plantin weather. lot of rotary hoes running around to break up all the crust. bill, for them there emergency field repairs, you need an m with a mounted dc welder. heres my m with a 260 amp dc welder. real handy for them out-of-the way breakdowns!!
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My father-in-law was a corn-soybean farmer in western Iowa. Alway lost the crop three or four time and always ended up with a good crop. First it was to wet to plant. Then it was to dry then there was the danger of frost. Next was getting in the harvest. Relax. enjoy life and the family. It is all in the hands of the Lord
gitrib