7/28/2010

How's the weather in your parts? Is your planting ahead or behind schedule? What is your 2010 crop mix?

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Keep your acreage, weather and crop comments coming in! Use this link to send us your comments about the crops in your local area. Be sure to send us your photos and videos! Comments will be edited for brevity and clarity. (Please keep your comments crop-related.)

Here's a sampling of what some folks are saying: 
 

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• 7/28 - South Haven, Kan.: Tim Turek: Four inches of rain just before harvest. Shot on June 14. Visit www.VoicesAcrossthePlains.com to follow videos and posts from these and other Voices Across the Plains growers as the season progresses. (Read more wheat-related comments at AgWeb's www.VirtualWheatTour.com)
  

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• 7/28 - Ririe, Idaho: Brigham Cook: Checking our wheat for moisture to see if we need to continue irrigating. Visit www.VoicesAcrossthePlains.com to follow videos and posts from these and other Voices Across the Plains growers as the season progresses. (Read more wheat-related comments at AgWeb's www.VirtualWheatTour.com)
  

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• 7/28 - Ririe, Idaho: Brigham Cook: In addition to wheat, we grow potatoes. Earlier this spring we shot this video of loading potatoes for a cutter for our seed potatoes. They go through a sizer and get cut for seed. Then they get treated with fungicide and planted. We plant 75-105 acres in a day. Visit www.VoicesAcrossthePlains.com to follow videos and posts from these and other Voices Across the Plains growers as the season progresses. (Read more wheat-related comments at AgWeb's www.VirtualWheatTour.com)
  

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• 7/27 - Central Montana.: Harvest is probably about two weeks away here. We are definitely going to be at least two weeks behind normal. The crops overall are excellent. Hailstones, grasshoppers and sawflys continue to take their share of grain, but hopefully we can get to cutting as soon as possible. Putting on pickup guards, fine-tuning the combines and waiting to roll and cut at least three semi loads of wet wheat, then come to our senses and harvest. Weather here is still cool and wet, so we're hoping to have a late summer with some heat and harvesting weather. Lots of wheat went to hay this year, as hay was marginal because of the cold weather. Good luck to everyone harvesting, and be safe.

 

• 7/23 - Western Walsh County, northeast North Dakota: Our efforts have been to fungicide all the wheat at flowering. Only the last seeded 200 acres are left to do. North Dakota State University testing showed about a 10% yield increase with  the high-priced, newest fungicide over the cheap generic we had been using in the past. We decided to go with the $17.00 treatment versus $2.50 because our wheat looks like it could be very high yield, but I'm afraid the protein will be low. The only stress it's been subjected to is too much rain in June. There are some drown out areas. Last night we streamed on 30 lb. of liquid N on 150 acres that looked like it was short some N. 
  
  I traveled across the state this weekend -- no harvest activity yet -- but the winter wheat and barley west of Bismarck is getting close. Our barley is turning also, and the peas are shutting down. Canola, corn tasselling, sunflowers and soybeans all across the state look better than in many years. North  Dakota has had some real summer weather this year...and it shows in the crop development.
   

• 7/23 - McPherson, Kan.: July 21 was one month since I finished wheat harvest. I got some wheat stubble worked down for the 2011 crop, but got over 4" of rain a few days into July, then another inch the middle of the month. I was able to get half a day in the field this week (swags and dead furrows were still wet), but was rained out again with 0.36" last night. Several areas of the county received 1.5" or more. There is more rain forecast for the weekend. I am sure the spring crops appreciate it, but I would like to get the last two days of primary tillage done before the end of the month.
   

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• 7/19 - South Haven, Kan.: Tim Turek: Wheat harvest. Visit www.VoicesAcrossthePlains.com to follow videos and posts from these and other Voices Across the Plains growers as the season progresses. (Read more wheat-related comments at AgWeb's www.VirtualWheatTour.com)
  

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• 7/19 - Western New York: We're moving right along, averaging 80 bushel per acre here in western NY. Temps are in the upper 80's to near 90. Precipitation has been near normal to above normal for us since June. Other crops are fairing well despite some low areas suffering from the heavy downpours from the most recent storms. Keep pluggin'. (Read more wheat-related comments at AgWeb's www.VirtualWheatTour.com)

• 7/14 - Martinsville, Ohio: The soft red winter wheat crop is out in this region. As reported earlier, the crop was all over the board. The lowest yield I know of is 30 bu. per acre and the highest was only 80 bu., when we had some near 100 bu. last year.

  Of course, the crop got off to a late, wet start, what little was planted. I planted the most I have in my lifetime and it made just shy of 70 bu., which wasn't bad for the year or that farm with a reported average of 48 bu.

  The wheat seed that was treated with T-22 and Gaucho was by far my best wheat.  It made over 90 and the untreated was under 70. This year I will use SabrEx, the T-22 replacement on my seed and Gaucho or its replacement. I will try some combinations of other treatments, too.

  The best report was my test weight was over 60 lb. and I never had any vomitoxin. When the test kit came out, the truck lines got longer. We started record early June 21 and finished June 26. The wet May, then June heat, killed the crop prematurely and I think it took 10-20 bu. off the final yield.

  The best part is I was able to plant it all back to beans, they came right up and it is still raining here. I might have a shot at some record double-crop beans.

  I love growing wheat and it fits well in my rotation. The stickler was the weather and the price. The price never got above $6 and went to $4, then came screaming back past $5.  Some farmers sold 2011 for $6 or more last week.

  I hope your crop was good.

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• 7/13 - Ririe, Idaho: Brigham Cook: The wheat in Idaho is progressing. The irrigated crops are completely headed out and looking about average. The dry farm crops are still looking good, though as is always the case in July, a rain would be very beneficial as the areas in the weakest soil are starting to show stress due to lack of water. The progression of the crops is a little behind normal this year. I expect to start harvesting around the 10th-15th of August instead of the 8th. So far, this has been a pretty good growing season, with above-average rainfall early on, but has turned off warm and dry lately. With no further rains, I expect to have an average harvest with dry farm yields between 30 and 35 bu. per acre and irrigated between 100-115 bu. of dark northern spring wheat and 120-140 bu. of hard red winter wheat. Visit www.VoicesAcrossthePlains.com to follow videos and posts from these and other Voices Across the Plains growers as the season progresses. (Read more wheat-related comments at AgWeb's www.VirtualWheatTour.com)
  

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• 7/13 - South Haven, Kan.: Tim Turek: Combines are cleaned up and some are in the shed. About half of the wheat ground has been disked. Hot dry weather and crabgrass growth was making the fields dry and hard, but we received a 4" rain and have been out of the field for several days. This rain was right on time for our row crops that we have planted. Our next wheat project will begin Monday, cleaning seed wheat. I have Robert Henry of Grain Conditioning Inc. coming from Colorado for this work. It will probably take five or six long days to accomplish this task. Samples will be sent to Kansas Crop Improvement after cleaning for testing and final certification. Varieties that my brother and I will have for sale are Jackpot, Art, Tam 203, Everest, Fuller and Endurance. Visit www.VoicesAcrossthePlains.com to follow videos and posts from these and other Voices Across the Plains growers as the season progresses. (Read more wheat-related comments at AgWeb's www.VirtualWheatTour.com)
   

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• 7/12 - Northeast Colorado: Wheat harvest is finally getting underway in NE Colorado.  Early yield reports are in the 40’s and 50’s for bu./ac. Haven’t heard any protein contents yet.  It is about a week later than normal getting started.  Sounds like the weather should be good for the next week so a lot of acres will get harvested.  Areas further south in Colorado are also going with some yield reports as high as the 70’s.  Overall there should be a lot of bushels out of Colorado this year.  I hope everyone has a safe harvest.
  
   

• 7/12 - Lebanon Indiana: Summer at Herr Farms. 70 acres of harvesting, not very much compared to past years.
  
   
   

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• 7/12 - Coleharbor, N.D.: Paul Anderson: Applying fungicide to wheat to take care of scab. Visit www.VoicesAcrossthePlains.com to follow videos and posts from these and other Voices Across the Plains growers as the season progresses. (Read more wheat-related comments at AgWeb's www.VirtualWheatTour.com)
  
   

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• 7/9 - Perkins County, northwest South Dakota, and Adams County, southwest North Dakota (small wheat farmer with planted acres @1,000): Our "early planted spring wheat" (snow still on the ground in late April and early May) looks OK. We completed planting in Perkins County prior to May 15. We completed two quarters in Adams County by month's end. We were unable to plant two other quarters, so the same will be chem fallowed ground. On average, we have all spring planted on or before April 30. My memory is that we have not planted this late since the last part of the 1970s when I started farming.
  
  The "late planted spring wheat" will need miracle weather to mature for harvest. We have no grain drying system, so a wet fall would make harvest difficult. The hot, dry weather prior to July 4 with high winds was hard on our crop since we had excellent moisture going into planting, but we could use some slow, soaking rains. I have no expectations that the spring wheat we planted in Adams County will yield anywhere close to the average county yield.
  
  My neighbor's winter wheat in Perkins County looks excellent. I would guess that it could yield between 40 to 50 bu. per acre. I believe that a spring wheat yield might be 20 to 25 bu. per acre if we get some more rain and some average temperatures.
   

• 7/7 - Southeastern Virginia, just north of North Carolina state line (peanut, cotton and grain area): We are burning up! For the last 45 days had 1.2" of rain, and the most came at 2/10" in about 30 minutes. 110-day corn planted on April 5 is burnt up two-thirds of the plant and 119-day corn is about 5' tall, starting to tassel. 99° temp today and tomorrow, with the best possible rain forecasted for Saturday or Sunday. We are in trouble, hearing about spider mites in cotton and peanuts. Sure, they are also in soybeans, but are small and wilting by midday. Wheat crop was the worst yield in the last 25 years, but quality held up.
   
  
   
• 7/6 - Panhandle of Texas: We are receiving rain now and are wet.  The cotton and corn looks good.  We still have wheat in the field and the yields are good.  The dumb farmer I am, listened to the so called marketing experts on this site that wheat would go down, so I panicked and sold some wheat last week and this week wheat is up $.40/bu.  Where do we get good advice?

• 7/1 - Putnam County, Ohio: Starting to spray beans for the last time. Harvesting wheat that is 48 to 54 lb. test weight, anywhere from 71 cents bu. dock to over $2.00 dock. The good wheat is making 60 and the poorer stuf is in the 40s.

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• 6/21 - Sherman, Texas: Chad Wetzel: Finishing harvest of registered soft red winter wheat using JD9770 STS combine, 30 ft. header and autosteer. Visit www.VoicesAcrossthePlains.com to follow videos and posts from these and other Voices Across the Plains growers as the season progresses. (Read more wheat-related comments at AgWeb's www.VirtualWheatTour.com)
  
   

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• 6/18 - Sanilac County, Mich.: See a field of white wheat.
  
  
   
• 6/18 - McPherson, Kan.: We officially started wheat harvest here on Thursday June 17.  That is a bit on the early side for us, but grain moisture was already 12%.  Test weight was about 60 pounds per bushel.  It was only 2 days since the last rainfall, but the ground was amazingly solid.  There were a few wet swags and terrace channels, but we were able to clean cut the first field anyway.
   

• 6/14 - Northeast Colorado: The wheat crop in this area looks good.  We were just beginning to get a little dry but have received around 1.5” of nice rains the last three nights (6/11 thru 6/13).  It should finish out the wheat and keep the test weights up.  Who knows about the protein?  There has been some strip rust and disease in the area but we have had enough warm weather to keep most of it at bay to be able to let the wheat finish.  Some areas of Colorado were hit be severe weather the last couple days and I certainly feel for those guys.  Everyone have a safe harvest season.
  
   
• 6/14 - McPherson, Kan.: There has been wheat cut not too far south of me last week.  I suspect it was still high moisture and run through a bin.  We should be cutting by the end of the week, depending on the weather.  We are forecast for heavy rains the next few days.Local price is down to $3.35 a bushel.  We are getting to the point I may have a revenue insurance claim, even with decent yields.  We'll see.
  
   

• 6/14 - Kingfisher County, Okla.: SUNUP's Clinton Griffiths takes a trip to Kingfisher county to check on how wheat harvest is progressing for wheat producer Tom Glazier and his family.
  
  
   

• 6/14 - Briscoe County, Texas: Cotton and corn are off to one of the best starts in years.  All crops look great with no real insect or weather concerns. Wheat harvest has been going for about a week.  Yields and test weights are good but basis is terrible.  A lot of it should have been grazed out.
  
  
   
• 6/11 - Henry County, northwest Ohio: We are all pretty much aware of the challenges that we have faced this spring with too much rain, beans that have not been planted, yellow corn, etc., etc., and to make matters worse the head scab in our wheat is as bad as any that I have ever seen. I estimate at least a 25% loss and of course that depends on average test weight, which looks like a long shot. I have a bad feeling the word vomitoxin will surface at harvest.
   

• 6/11 - Western Walsh County, northeast North Dakota: Wheat seeding started on April 22 and we finished on June 1st. Harvest will be very spread out… Everything seeded prior to April 29 has been sprayed, and is looking great. All of it was planted on last year's prevent plant cover crop, or pea and bean ground. No leaf disease has showed up yet. We did not include fungicide with the herbicide application because it all looked so clean. But about 400 acres of the later wheat was put back on wheat ground, and now it's raining again, so I know we will be adding Headline to the weed spraying on those fields. Sunshine and market boost would both be welcome. This morning we had wind, rain and 46 degree temps. Last spring we had to leave 30% of the farm in prevent-plant... This year we got every acre planted.
   

• 6/7 - Grayson County, Texas: Finished up harvest on our 6800 acres of wheat, wow what a great year it was this year. Last year we lost 4550 acres to all the freezing weather and this year the rain and snow helped out. Getting calls everyday to harvest other fields in the area with 11 combines looks like we are going to be busy. Corn is standing about 5 ft tall and some milo is starting to head. Several farmers in our area planted cotton this year and all the fields look good just need some weed control.
  
   

• 6/7 - McPherson, Kan.: I am two weeks away from wheat harvest.  We usually start within a couple days of June 20, and it looks about on par.  I am still predicting average yields.  There is disease pressure, but not out of the ordinary.  Cash price is at a contract low of $3.65 and still dropping.I was chatting with a famous wheat breeder at a wheat school is Hayes the other day.  He commented that many people switch to corn when the price difference is less than $1.50.  We are currently only $.80.
   
  
   
• 6/7 - Wilbur, Wash.: In the last two weeks I have received over 3.5 inches of rain! It’s been years since we have had one of these weather events.  The pasture grass is still nice and green, and the wheat is looking good.  The spring wheat is growing too and needs to be sprayed now, but too wet to do so! The combines in the shop.  Looks like she will have lots of straw to deal with!
  
   

• 6/7 - Sanilac County, Mich.: Comments regarding fungicide research trial and some application recommendations.
  

• 6/4 - Western Walsh County, northeast North Dakota: We finished wheat and sunflower seeding on June 1. What started out so good turned into a long spring, with several rain delays. About half of the edible beans were planted the past three days, but now we are held up with another rain overnight...only 0.7", enough to make a delay again. The early wheat and canola has been sprayed, but we have a bunch of acres to go over when it's dry again.
  
  The peas look as good as we have ever had. I also put in 40 acres of lentils...just to see if we can get them to maturity here in the wetter, eastern part of ND, without losing them to diseases. Our plan is to use an agressive fungicide program, spraying on a regular schedule. The legume "pulse crops" have been a big plus for the small grain rotation. They are a good option for us, where the lack of heat units and short growing season  really limits soybean production. This our 15th year of pulse crops in the mix.
  
  A fungicide will be added to all our herbicide mixes when spraying wheat.
  
   
• 6/4 - Southwest Ohio: I talked to several wheat producers across the 30-mile path of our little wheat area yesterday. We are optimistic the wheat will harvest by July 4, our normal goal with decent yields and quality. Cereal leaf beetle larvae reduced some yields, Septoria and Staganospora leaf spots reduced more total yields, with many moderate to severe field ratings. There was not time to get treatments on and no incentive to, at $4 wheat. I think we will average 70 bu. per acre again this year with yields as low as 60 and a few over 100. Scab and quality is still a concern but reduces each day of maturity. There are very few white heads showing in SW Ohio.
  

  -- Poison Ivy in a southern Ohio wheat field.   (Have any photos of the crops on your farm? Send them to AgWeb and have them posted on Crop Comments! Be sure to include a caption.)

  
   
• 6/1 - Lewistown, Mont.: I think most of Montana picked up some pretty good precipitation this Memorial Day week. We had 2 inches here and it sounds like it was pretty general all through eastern Montana, as well. The crops in general look good, but late. Our early seeded spring wheat looks as far along as the winter wheat. I would estimate the winter wheat in our area to be a good 10 days behind normal in maturity. We had started to notice some grasshopper hatches prior to this rain, so hopefully it has put the kibosh on them. Always nice to avoid the hot weather, but the weatherman is forecasting a freeze for tonight, which probably wouldn't hurt us, but the freezing at night is starting to get old. (Read more wheat-related comments at AgWeb's www.VirtualWheatTour.com)
  
   

Where can you find the latest wheat production news? It is just a click away at AgWeb’s www.VirtualWheatTour.com.

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