Corn
Look for sales opportunities entering September 2017, says Grant Shimek of Black Oak Financial in Festina, Iowa.
A 55-mph drive by your cornfields won’t cut it if you want to avoid surprises at the end of the season. Lace up your scouting boots and get into each of your fields to estimate yield.
The 2017 Farm Journal Midwest Crop Tour kicked off in Dublin, Ohio, (a suburb of Columbus), with scouts sampling fields along 12 designated routes to Fishers, Indiana (a suburb o Indianapolis).
Is agriculture exempt from the permitting requirements of the Clean Water Act? Growers will have to wait a while longer for an answer to that question following a $1.1 million settlement in a landmark case this week.
The event celebrating sustainable agriculture practices and collaboration across the food supply chain is open to all farmers will be jointly hosted by the National Corn Growers Association and Environmental Defense Fund.
Mexican Elevators, Feed Mills Possibly Importing from South America Mexico is a deficit ag producer and for things like corn, imports are essential. While proximity and infrastructure has made the U.S. a logical trading partner, buyers here are now looking to the sea. As the feed goes out, the trains roll in to Grupo Gramosa, a commercial elevator and feed mill in Queretaro, Mexico. “We receive trains full of grain, mostly yellow corn,” said Jorge Castillo, operations manager of Grupo Gramosa. “We receive about five or six trains a month.”
Are farmers protected by the agricultural practices exemption of the Clean Water Act? That is the centerpiece of a court hearing getting underway in California.
Farmers throughout the south have seen big gains in statewide average yields. Most of the states in the region planted fewer corn acres, lowering total production.
The late-season irrigation know-how Olan Moore started using in Texas corn growers’ fields 40 years ago is common in the Lone Star state but still relatively unknown in the Midwest. Moore, owner of High Plains Consulting near Springlake, Texas, says the practice boils down to this: “When corn matures, and that milk line is one-half of the way down and you have 90-degree-temperatures-plus, if you don’t have 4.45” to 5” of soil moisture in the top 3’ of the soil profile you could lose up to 30- to 40-bu. per acre of corn,” he explains. “Just 2” to 3” applied through the pivot can make a huge difference on the tail end of the season.”