From the Fields: Back to normal

On June 29, Washington County got hit by a mini-derecho. We had severe winds, like 100 mph winds in some places. It laid some corn flat and destroyed some buildings. Some people were out of power for days. Up until that day, we were just a few days away from disastrous crop yields, like 50-bushel corn. The corn was getting ready to tassel and it was bone dry. I caught about two inches of rain and that was a game changer. That saved the crop for us.

During July, it rained enough to get things going. A lot of corn got sprayed with fungicide. I would say we’re OK for now. It won’t be a disaster. If it had not rained then, all the silage would have been chopped and in storage already, but now not so much. The corn greened back up and is ready to go, so it’s back to normal for the most part in our neighborhood.

Our wheat yields, in general, were very good to excellent across the board. We harvested a lot of 90-plus, 100-bushel wheat. I didn’t think it would be that good, as dry as we were. But it held on and did really, really well. The numbers that came back during the Illinois Wheat Association tour bore themselves out pretty much.