From the Fields: Wet start to season

I’ll start by trying to catch you up to date on crops and conditions in our area. Early April was great as we experienced ideal ground conditions and favorable weather and everyone’s attitudes were in a good place. We planted about 200 acres of corn and soybeans in that early April window. We decided to be patient and park the planter while we waited for some acres that were marginal as we figured we had plenty of time — that’s when the monsoon rains came.

We had just finished planting around 300 acres of corn about mid May and we received a freak 3-plus-inch rain event We knew we’d be replanting a bunch of acres, but the weather never cooperated enough before the corn got up to even drive across the fields. When the time finally came and we had another window we did stand counts and decided to keep it. We were running out of time and still had several acres to plant for the first time. Unfortunately, it didn’t stop there.

We had several 4- to 5-inch rain events finishing out planting season into the first week of June. We had a large wheat crop out, so we very quickly switched gears from sidedress to harvest mode. Typically in this timeframe we find ourselves begging for rain, but not this year. We battled getting the wheat cut because it was just so wet and continued to rain on us every other day it seemed like. I have never planted double-crop beans in the mud, but this year we had to in order to get them planted in time for insurance deadline of July 15. We had 80 acres of stubble that we didn’t plant until July 22, which is extremely late for our area, but we had several others in the same boat as us.

We figured we had seed already paid for and the planter still hooked up, so we planted it, thinking we’ll either make beans or have an expensive cover crop. All in all, our crops look good again. Now any slough or wet hole is done for, but what is there looks really good and has huge potential again if the rains hold out for us in August. I believe corn will be good, not great, like last year, while I think the beans have tremendous potential if they get those late August rains we need to finish them off. A lot of fungicide has been going on last week on corn and beans both.

We picked up a new seed company this year to partner with to bring our customers Enlist E3 soybeans for the 2021 season. We had a huge demand for E3 and LG Seeds bean platform was the XtendFlex bean. We partnered with Merschman Seeds out of West Point, Iowa for all our soybeans this year and did quite well for first year with a new company and product. We are still a premier LG Seeds dealer and sell exclusively LG corn hybrids. We have had a great relationship established with Merschman already and have a lot of good feedback from growers who bought seed from us this year. We are excited to bring more options to our customers so they can continue to work with us as a dealer, but have the freedom to pick and choose what traits and hybrids work best for them. The 2022 sales season is almost here again and I’m really excited for our existing and new customers to see what all new things are yet to come for us next year. We will be having a field day this year to show case both the Merschman and LG products we will be offering, which is a nice change of pace after last year when COVID hit and we couldn’t interact with our customers like we normally do. I think “normal” will be hard to define even this year, though.

My wife and I love spending time on the farm with our son, Charlie. He is truly the light of my life. It is truly special to watch your son see and learn what dad and mom do all day. He’s running around and into everything and some days are harder then others especially with all the stresses this growing season has had. On the hard days I look at him and he always does something ornery or funny that makes everything else seem like nothing and makes every minute with him worth it. He loves all things farm, including seeing cows, or as we refer to them “moo moos,” and riding in trucks and tractors. When he’s not working, you can find him in a dirt or rock pile.

My wife I just celebrated our five-year wedding anniversary and we can’t believe how much we’ve been through and accomplished in what felt like such a short time. We have new goals for both our family and business and we continue to count our blessings every day for what the good Lord has provided us with. We will have a lot to talk about in the coming weeks as we get a better understanding of where our crops sit and what we can expect as the weather and markets come into play as fall is quickly approaching.