Wind

When Weird Corn Ears Wreck the Bottom Line

Mon, 23 Feb 2026 19:58:07 GMT

Abnormal corn ears may look like a cosmetic problem, but depending on the severity, they can deliver a significant hit to yield, reports Osler Ortez, Ohio State University corn specialist.

“If a field is managed for 200-bushel corn but only delivers 100 bushels because abnormal ears dominate, then every pound of nitrogen, every inch of irrigation and every pass you make across that field becomes much harder to justify,” he says.

Yield losses from abnormal corn ears can range from 35% to 91% in affected plants, with typical field-wide impacts often trailing lower, Ortez reports.

For reference, an “average” corn ear generally produces 16 kernel rows with about 800 kernels per ear, according to the Iowa State Extension.

Irregularities such as zipper ears (shown below), earless plants or multiple ears, reduce grain yield through poor kernel set, abortion or reduced kernel weight.

A common abnormality called zipper ear is caused by kernel abortion or failed pollination. The issue is often triggered by severe environmental stress during early grain fill or pollination from factors including drought, high heat or nutrient deficiency.

(R. L. Nielsen, professor emeritus and Purdue University Corn Specialist, retired)

Ortez emphasizes no single factor explains abnormal ear development. It’s nearly always the result of an interaction between three factors that corn researchers refer to as GEM:
G — Genetics (hybrid)

E — Environment (weather, stress)

M — Management (practices)

He adds that understanding when the stress is happening, the timing of it, is also important. For instance, early-season stress can limit ear initiation and potential ear number, while midseason issues impact pollination and kernel set. Late-season stress reduces kernel fill and overall weight.

Strategic Management Levers

While the weather can’t be controlled, Ortez says understanding the GEM interaction gives corn growers more leverage than they realize.

He lists three management decisions that can help growers mitigate the risk of abnormal ear development:

1. Evaluate the genetics: Treating hybrid selection as a defensive tool against ear problems — right alongside disease tolerance and standability — is one of the clearest ways to lower risk.

2. Pick a recommended seeding rate: In Nebraska field trials, Ortez observed abnormal ears increased at both ends of the seeding rate spectrum.

“Chasing a few extra bushels with aggressive populations, especially on drought-prone or otherwise stressed acres, often backfired when stress hit at the wrong time,” he notes. Conversely, pulling populations too low also created conditions where ear development went off track.

3. Consider the planting date: Researchers found planting hybrids outside the optimal window — either very early into cold, wet conditions or very late into heat and moisture stress — made it more likely sensitive growth stages would line up with damaging stress. Matching planting date to local recommendations and the strengths of a given hybrid proved to be an important way to reduce those risky overlaps.

Ultimately, by tuning into GEM, farmers can better safeguard their investments. As Ortez points out, the more sides of that triangle a farmer can stabilize or improve, the less likely a season’s worth of hard work and inputs will be undone by a field of problem ears.

Hear Ortez share more of his research on abnormal ear development in a recent podcast sponsored by the Crop Protection Network.

Unpacking the Disappointment: 5 Reasons Some Iowa Growers Had Ho-Hum Corn Yields

Mon, 03 Nov 2025 22:43:59 GMT

A growing season that started with tremendous potential in east-central Iowa finished with yield results that left many growers in the area disappointed by average or below-average results, according to Agronomist Nicole Stecklein.

Stecklein details five key factors she believes contributed to disappointing 2025 yield results. Here are her key takeaways from this season as well as some recommendations for 2026.

1. A ‘planting date effect’ occurred: Stecklein says she is an early-plant advocate and likes to see farmers start planting when the soil is fit and a good weather forecast is in the cards.

“In eight years out of 10 years, that usually turns out pretty good. In a lot of cases, the early planted corn will be your best corn, but that wasn’t the case this year,” she says.

Early-planted corn, particularly those hybrids in early to mid-maturities, generally underperformed.

Stecklein identified two main culprits. First, there was considerable localized soil crusting. Even with rotary hoeing, significant variability in ear development and inconsistent pollination impacted the crop and contributed to yield loss.

A second culprit was that the earlier planted corn seemed to bear the brunt of later-season stresses, particularly from disease issues, heavy moisture and above-average temperatures.

Too much rain and disease were problems for Ward Hunter, Ogden, Iowa, especially southern rust. He told U.S. Farm Report’s Tyne Morgan that his early corn hybrid yields were disappointing, coming in at around 220 bu. per acre, even though he applied a fungicide.

“We were at about our APH,” he says. “If it hadn’t been for disease pressure, I think we could have been in the 270s or so [with early maturing hybrids] here in central Iowa.”

FBN Poll Results: This week's poll, with over 1,700 responses, shows 50% of participating FBN members seeing corn yields below expectations. Review the full results and share your thoughts: https://t.co/37lji8uYSc #farmersfirst #harvest25 #corn pic.twitter.com/LoijKZGnJ5
— FBN (@FBNFarmers) October 31, 2025

For farmers wondering if they should move to later planting dates across the baord in 2026, Stecklein says probably not. Instead, she says to continue to evaluate soils and weather conditions at planting.

Ken Ferrie offers similar advice to farmers in central Iowa and central Illinois. “My advice for farmers is if we have a green light in April, plant some corn,” says Ferrie, Farm Journal Field Agronomist.

However, Ferrie says farmers shouldn’t be afraid to wait until May to get a green light from Mother Nature to start the planting process.

“We never know how the rest of the year will play out. So, breaking the planting window up is a good way to mitigate risk and take the jam out of the fall of having everything ready at the same time,” he explains.

2. High winds were a blow to corn performance: June brought a series of severe high-wind events to large swaths of east-central Iowa.

The damage manifested in root lodging, green snap, and willowing. Corn that had already tasseled before the winds hit fared better, thanks to better developed root systems and brace roots, Stecklein reports.

Conversely, corn that had not yet tasseled suffered the most severe root lodging and green snap, as its rapidly growing, brittle nodes were highly susceptible.

Willowing, which occurs where corn plants bend at the waist, proved to be a stealthy yield robber this summer. The stress from bending, particularly around the developing ear node, led to poorly pollinated ears with short husks, leaving grain exposed to elements, birds and disease, significantly impacting quality and yield.

Tons of sub 150 corn in our area. Harrison and Pottawattamie county Iowa. Too much wind/greensnap and too much diesese. It’s the crop that never was.
— Brandon Clark (@clarkbrandon44) November 3, 2025

While wind is an unavoidable reality across the state, Stecklein would advise farmers in consistently windy areas to consider prioritizing root and green snap scores when selecting hybrids for 2026.

“This is not a foolproof way to get around the wind. It’s just knowing that some hybrids have a lower possibility of getting hit by wind in a window when they’re vulnerable, because all corn is vulnerable. The wind is all about timing. But if you shorten that window, then you’re decreasing the chances that you’ll get hit at a vulnerable time,” she explains.

3. Heat took a bite out of yield potential. Another major factor impacting 2025 yields in east-central Iowa was the pervasive overnight heat during grain fill, specifically in July and August.

Stecklein says the general rule of thumb is for each night during grain fill that temperatures stay at 70 degrees Fahrenheit or above, your corn crop will experience about a 1% yield loss in each 24-hour period.

What happens is the result of a lack of equilibrium between the process of photosynthesis during the day and then respiration at night.

“During the day, the plant is taking sunlight and carbon dioxide and making sugars. It’s creating energy,” Stecklein explains. “Overnight, you have respiration occurring. Respiration is using energy to repair cells, And the rate of these processes is very temperature dependent.”

When nighttime temperatures remain high, the rate of respiration dramatically increases. This means the plant burns through its energy reserves much faster.

Stecklein says that in July and August, parts of east-central Iowa had 15 nights that stayed at 70 degrees or greater.

“If you’re good at math, that means a 15% yield loss. If you had 300 bushels to lose at tassel, that brings you straight down to 255, bushels, just based on overnight temperatures,” she says.

4. Disease pressure reached unprecedented levels for some farmers. The big gorilla this season was southern rust, which took most Iowa farmers by surprise.

”Southern rust is the one that everybody is talking about, because it’s so aggressive and because, honestly, in Iowa, we were not prepared for how aggressive it was going to be,” Stecklein says.

Unlike tar spot, southern rust is not a disease that overwinters in residue. It must “blow in” from the South, and it also needs corn to infect to complete its life cycle. For those reasons, Stecklein would advise Iowa farmers to not make hybrid decisions for next year based on concerns for southern rust.

However, she would advise them to take tar spot into consideration as they evaluate which hybrids to plant in 2026.

“If you are going to spray [a fungicide], you’re going to be OK if you do choose a hybrid that’s susceptible, because there are some very good hybrids out there that aren’t super tolerant to tar spot. Make sure that you’re planning on at least making one fungicide pass at tassel. But if you will not spray two passes of fungicide, do not choose a hybrid that has a very poor tar spot rating, because if we get the weather that’s very conducive to tar spot, you’re going to lose some bushels,” she adds.

5. Phantom yield loss showed up at harvest. Based on phantom yield loss data, Stecklein says there’s about 2 bushels lost per percent of moisture. How that translates into a yield loss: if you like to harvest at 22% moisture but the crop is at 16% moisture when you finally combine it, you’re looking at a loss of 12 bushels per acre.

If you find yourself consistently harvesting corn at a drier level than you want, Stecklein would say it’s time to adjust your hybrid maturities. If phantom yield loss isn’t a consistent issue you face, then you’re probably OK to stick with your current maturities.

Her final advice for 2026: “I keep wanting to say that every year I learn something unique, but at the end of the day, my key takeaways from every year have almost always been the same: if you plan for failure and if you give up, you’re going to be met with failure. However, if you are persistent through hardships and manage according to those hardships, you’re setting yourself up for success.”

Watch Stecklein’s recent video, Corn 2025: What happened , for more insights on the east-central Iowa corn results.

Drought Conditions Intensify Threat Of Field And Combine Fires

Mon, 22 Sep 2025 19:56:58 GMT

High temperatures and low humidity across the eastern and western Corn Belt this past week have increased the risks for field and combine fires as harvest ramps up across the country.

With the dry conditions, Ken Ferrie encourages everyone to have plans A and B in place, ready to implement if fire occurs.

“If your plan A is to call the fire department, remember, in rural America, most of our great volunteer firemen are running their own combines, so response time is a challenge,” he says.

While Ferrie believes you – or someone on your team – needs to call the fire department or 911 to get help, he says to consider making containment your Plan A.

In the case of a field fire, keep a tillage tool or spray tender nearby. “Have it in the field with you ready to go,” he advises.

Crops that are extremely dry coupled with even a bit of wind can set up a fast-moving scenario you need to snuff out quickly. Time is of the essence, as a fire can double in size within a mere minute or two.

“That situation won’t wait for you to go home, find a tractor, dig out a tillage tool or stick a hose in your spray tender and get to your field,” Ferrie says. “You won’t have the time to do that.”

A fully engulfed corn crib fire spread to nearby fields in Foosland this Friday.
📸: Mackenzie Wichtnerhttps://t.co/XkFERxHVf6 pic.twitter.com/1sG1uVVlMW
— WICS ABC 20 (@wics_abc20) September 19, 2025

In case of a combine fire, turn off the engine, get away from the machine, and phone for help.

Then, attack with fire extinguishers if it is safe to do so, advises Joshua Michel, Iowa State University field agronomist, in an online article .

“Try to fight from the ‘black,’ the area already burned,” Michel says. “Attacking a fire from areas with combustibles (e.g. dry corn stalks) is much riskier. Always stay upwind of a fire to minimize the risk of exposure from smoke, heat and possible flames.”

Keeping a shovel on the combine to throw dirt on a fire can also help.

Five Practical Steps To Be Ready For A Fire

Here are five additional things you can do to address a fire or prevent one from occurring this harvest:

1. As you combine fields, Ferrie says to keep in mind the wind direction. “Combine downwind, if possible, on windy days so if we have a combine fire it burns away from the crop,” he advises.

2. Have a daily maintenance plan for your equipment, including blowing off chaff and debris, properly lubricating chains/bearings, and cleaning up spills, advises Ohio State University Extension (OSU).

“The majority of harvester fires start in the engine compartment. Contributing factors for heat sources include faulty wiring, over-heated bearings, leaking fuel or hydraulic oil,” report Wayne Dellinger and Dee Jepsen at OSU, in this online article .

3. Have two ABC-rated fire extinguishers on hand. Keep a smaller 10-pound unit in the cab and a larger 20-pound extinguisher at ground level on the combine. Keeping an extra fire extinguisher on other pieces of machinery or trucks that are out in the field is also a good idea.

4. Invert the fire extinguisher once or twice during the season to ensure that machine vibrations don’t compact the powder inside.

5. Review your fire emergency plan with family and employees. As part of that, create a list with the 911 addresses for each of your field locations prior to harvest and have them easily accessible to family members and farm employees, Michel encourages. When a fire is called in with a 911 address, dispatch can more readily identify the incident location and relay this information to the fire department. This can save precious time as some fields may be in remote locations.

Your next read: 5 Critical Insights From The Southern Rust Rampage In Midwest Corn

Iowa Corn Has High Potential, Illinois Crop Looks Average and Soybeans Shine in Both States

Wed, 20 Aug 2025 23:58:02 GMT

Bright orange is a great color for pumpkins but not so much for corn. Nonetheless, that was the prevailing color Brent Judisch reports seeing as he evaluated crops Wednesday morning in northwest Iowa’s Harrison County.

“Our first six or seven samples were terrible with southern rust,” says Judisch, a Pro Farmer Crop Tour scout and Iowa farmer. “We saw three fields in a row that were actually gross. I walked out of them just covered with it. After that, while we’ve seen it all day, it’s been more in the lower leaves and not nearly as drastic.”

Chip Flory, lead scout for the western leg of the tour, says the northwest Iowa crop is the best and worst he’s ever seen.

“In the snapshot that we took of it, and the measurables we saw in the field today, it is the best corn crop,” Flory reported during the tour’s nightly live broadcast.

But the disease pressure in the Iowa crop has Flory spooked.

“Disease pressure is putting a lot of bushels — a huge number of bushels — at risk,” he adds. “You can take 20, 30 bushels off of corn yield with what southern rust can do to the crop, even at this late stage in the game. It’s a dangerous crop that we’re looking at out here right now.”

Chip Flory says he was surprised to see corn that was well into R5 (dent) in northwest Iowa. “I can’t tell if it was this mature because of pressure from the southern rust, or if it was because of higher nighttime temperatures at pollination,” he reports. “I am concerned about how much disease is out here, and what it’s going to look like in another week or two.”

(Chip Flory, Host of AgriTalk)

Can The Iowa Corn Crop Still Hit A Record?
The Iowa corn results were a big shocker on Wednesday, given the amount of disease pressure scouts saw, according to Emily Flory Carolan, Pro Farmer Crop Tour data consultant.

“I would say all three districts were setting new records. They were consistently high in all measurements for corn in ear count, inches long and kernels around,” she says.

Carolan’s summary of the results scouts tallied in Iowa revealed some high yield estimates, despite the disease pressure:

*District 1 was 197.89 bushels, up 12.06% versus 2024 and up 9.89% versus the three-year average.

*District 4 was 207.25 bushels, up 5.82% versus last year and up 14.01% versus the three-year average.

*District 7 came in at 195.03 bushels, up 1.80% versus 2024 and up 6.35% versus the three-year average.

(ProFarmer)

Flory is concerned southern rust will impact standability in the Iowa crop, which he says is starting to dent in areas, and cause some of it to go down.

“I’d want to keep an eye on the stalk condition of this crop, because if this disease pressure continues, farmers are going to want to get out and prioritize fields for harvest before we get there,” he adds.

Illinois Corn Crop Looks Average
Scouts report the Illinois corn crop appears lush from the road, but once they walked out into fields, picked ears and pulled back husks, most described finding an average crop.

“We’ve seen some good corn, we’ve seen some average corn and we’ve some stuff that’s got a long way to go,” tour scout Jake Guse told U.S. Farm Report’s Tyne Morgan on Wednesday morning.

That perspective played out in the total results tallied and shared during the nightly tour meeting. Illinois corn averaged 196.19 bushels per acre, down 2.24% from last year but up 1.72% from the three-year average.

(ProFarmer)

Ninth and final stop 4 miles North of Roseville, IL. Population was very good at 34,000. The yield is 213. Kernel depth is just under a 1/2 inch. Some disease was showing up here including tar spot! Soybeans had 1778 pods in 3X3 area. #oatt #pftour25 pic.twitter.com/xAcDSxJL0q
— Darren Frye (@Frye_WSS) August 20, 2025

USDA-NASS estimates released August 12 project the Illinois corn crop will come in averaging 221 bu. per acre for the state, up 4 bushels over 2024.

That’s outside what Guse’s expectations are for the state.

“As you’re driving along the road, you can see ears that are already tipped over. I just don’t see it reaching [USDA’s projection],” he says.

Lane Akre, Pro Farmer economist and host for the eastern leg of the tour, agrees with Guse. He reports pulling several samples of corn that exceeded 200-bu. per acre as well as one that only hit 143 bushels.

“The Illinois crop just wasn’t what we’d hoped,” Akre says. “USDA is anticipating a 1.7% jump from a year ago, and we’re actually down 2.2%.”

Akre’s leg of the tour went through three Illinois counties that are typically heavy hitters for corn yields: Bureau County, Henry County and Rock Island County.

“There’s really good dirt through that area, and the farmers there are very good at actively managing their crops and what they do with fertilizer, herbicide and fungicide,” Akre notes. “We saw some poor emergence and that might’ve weighed on the samples we took.”

Soybeans Could Be the Star of the Season
Soybeans offered a better yield picture for Illinois farmers than the corn crop, Akre notes.

“We didn’t have a single sample in the state that was south of 1,300 pods in a 3’x3' square. We saw a lot of pods and a lot of potential out there,” he says.

The average counts Illinois scouts recorded was even higher than what Akre found, with an average of 1,479.22 pods in a 3’x3' square area. That is up 4.24% versus 2024 and up 12.65% versus the three-year average.

(ProFarmer)

Iowa soybean results across the three districts were equally impressive.

“This year’s crop is better than last year by far,” Greg Lehenbauer, Pro Farmer crop scout, told AgDay’s Michelle Rook. “They’ve had adequate rain across this part of Iowa almost all summer long.”

#pftour25 Day 3. Stop 2 Plymouth Co. IA. #Soybean pod count 816. @AgDayTV @FarmJournal @USFarmReport pic.twitter.com/GgmulwJ8UI
— Michelle Rook (@michellerookag) August 20, 2025

Carolan’s data confirmed the excellent soybeans that crop scouts found on Wednesday in all three districts:

*District 1 soybeans: 1,279.25 pods, up 15.38% versus 2024 and up 15.05% versus the three-year average.

*District 4 soybeans: 1,376.15 pods, up 9.73% versus 2024 and up 13.63% versus the three-year average.

*District 7 soybeans: 1,562.54 pods, up 14.37% versus 2024, and up 24.66% versus the three-year average.

(ProFarmer)

While Flory is cautiously optimistic about the Iowa soybean crop, he says stem rot and sudden death syndrome is taking root in more fields and threatening yield outcomes.

“Some of the routes through southern and west-central Iowa have seen a tremendous amount of disease issue on the soybeans, so I’ve got a feeling it’s going to look a lot different in a week than what it does right now,” he predicts. “Now, if it was September 10, that’d be one thing. But it’s August 20, and there’s still time for those bean diseases to take some yield away.”

Flory’s sentiment about what fields revealed in Iowa was shared by scout Brent Judisch.

“What it’s going to come down to here in the corn and the beans is, does the crop mature faster than the disease moves, or will disease outpace the crop?” Judisch says. “We won’t know for sure for another two or three weeks.”

Watch On-Demand: Pro Farmer Crop Tour Day 3 Results from Illinois and Iowa

Watch On-Demand: Pro Farmer Crop Tour Day 2 Results from Indiana and Nebraska

Watch On-Demand: Pro Farmer Crop Tour Day 1 Results from Ohio and South Dakota

About the Pro Farmer Crop Tour
The Pro Farmer Crop Tour is taking place Aug. 18-21, 2025. Simultaneously, the tour follows an eastern and western route, with the two culminating in Rochester, Minn. Nightly meetings in each location review daily results, scouting observations and historical comparison data. Attend nightly meetings in person or watch the nightly broadcast online at AgWeb.com/croptour .

Be Prepared: Intense Storm Cluster With 75+ MPH Winds Working Through Upper Midwest Monday Evening

Mon, 28 Jul 2025 19:51:00 GMT

A powerful cluster of storms is forming in the Upper Midwest with a chance for crop-damaging winds and potential tornados in central South and North Dakota as well as southwestern Minnesota, warns The National Weather Service and meteorologist Bret Walts with BAMWX.com.

Walts expects the cluster will release a lot of wind energy this afternoon and this evening as it gathers steam moving east through the upper Great Plains. It could even intensify into a rare derecho storm with hurricane force winds.

UPDATE: The Weather Channel is now reporting a “derecho is likely to strike the Northern Plains.”

“We’ve got a stronger (atmospheric) jet stream moving in with a lot of instability in place still with the heat and humidity across parts of Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota and Minnesota,” he says.

Walts is paying close attention to how quickly the individual storm cells merge together. He says the faster that formation occurs the more intense the storm has the potential to become.

7/28/25: Intense severe storms are expected to form this afternoon in SD and spread southeastward into MN and IA through tonight. Swaths of damaging winds, potentially 75-90 mph, are the main concern. Be prepared to take action if watches and warnings are issued for your area. pic.twitter.com/wf2rH7eUdD
— NWS Storm Prediction Center (@NWSSPC) July 28, 2025

Walts forecasts the timing as 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. CT for parts of South and North Dakota, while 7 p.m. to 11 p.m. would be the time frame for the most intense winds in northwest Iowa and southwest Minnesota.

“If that initial cell to the north shoots out of a lot of boundaries it could lead to the setup becoming a little bit messier,” Walts says. “We’ll know by five or six o’clock that if this thing is not getting organized, then we have an idea it is not going to be that intense. But I don’t anticipate that happening because the environment is very, very unstable and there’s a lot of wind energy. That combination this time of the year normally is not a good thing.”

NOAA says it expects these storms will move very quickly, and it is important to take action when warnings are issued locally. Do not wait until you see or hear signs of a strong storm because by that time it might be too late.

Your Next Read: Insights From Seed Companies on Tackling Tassel Wrap Challenges

Ferrie: Corn Growers are on High Alert for Tar Spot

Tue, 08 Jul 2025 20:01:05 GMT

Where there’s smoke, there’s fire – and smoke alarms are starting to go off to alert corn growers to the disease fire that’s already ignited in some parts of the Midwest: tar spot.

Farm Journal Field Agronomist Ken Ferrie is monitoring tar spot reports closely and working with growers to create and implement action plans for their specific fields to address the disease.

“We’re finding tar spot here on the bottom leaves, meaning it’s homegrown tar spot,” says Ferrie, who’s based south of Bloomington, Ill. “Finding tar spot here the last week in June means that the plants were infected already by the second week in June.

“There’s no way to sugarcoat this, guys. Tar spot showing up here in June means we’ll have hell to pay in August,” he adds.

The understanding of how the disease progresses quickly came at a cost to Illinois corn growers in June 2021, Ferrie recalls. Few agronomists or farmers understood the impact of what they were seeing unfold in cornfields.

“We weren’t sure what that meant at the time, but by the end of September, anyone in ‘tar spot alley’ realized just how devastating this disease could be. There were massive amounts of down corn with yield hits ranging from 20- to 60-bu. per acre,” Ferrie says.

“Northern Iowa farmers experienced something similar in 2022,” he adds.

You can listen to Ferrie’s complete Boots In The Field podcast, where he discusses how to effectively address tar spot here:

Here’s a look at where the Crop Protection Network has confirmed tar spot in 2025, so far. See county-level infections at Tar Spot of Corn Map :

(Crop Protection Network)

How Tar Spot Differs From Other Corn Diseases

Ferrie says most leaf diseases in corn are a problem because they destroy the leaf surface and tear up the plant’s solar panels – the leaves that fuel corn’s ability to make food.

“When managing most leaf diseases, we are usually concerned about the leaves above the ear. Those are our money makers,” Ferrie says. “When we start scouting, we’re looking one leaf below the ear leaf, and we also look up, looking for any disease lesion and the halos around it.”

With tar spot, the attack is coming from the bottom of the corn plant. “So that is where you need to look when you’re scouting,” he says.

Another way tar spot differs from most diseases in corn is it’s parasitic.

“When it infects the bottom leaves, it will pull nutrients away from the corn plant. So not only will it tear up the solar panels and damage the leaves, but it’ll rob nutrients,” Ferrie explains. “It’ll siphon nutrients off from the plant.”

Like extreme parasite levels in livestock that go untreated, a tar spot infection can pull corn plants down and kill them prematurely.

The plant essentially cannibalizes itself, contributing to reduced yields and standability issues at harvest.

Have Your Plan Of Attack Ready

Every corn grower needs to have a plan in place ahead of time for how to handle the tar spot issue. Farmers needing help in selecting fungicides can check out efficacy ratings and other information the Crop Protection Network offers here .

Ferrie says his standard recommendation for a fungicide application is to wait for brown silk, if disease pressure is not at threshold.

“You want more backend horsepower for those D hybrids – those hybrids that make a big portion of their yield in kernel fill,” he says. “However, if you’re at threshold, spray the field, don’t wait for brown silk.”

Here is a look at tar spot fungicide application recommendations from the Crop Protection Network:

(Crop Protection Network)

Ferrie shares two treatment scenarios for Illinois growers who are experiencing tar spot now – one for those growers in Scott County (where pollination is finishing up) and the other for Woodford County (where pollination is just starting).

“Our recommendation for the Scott County farmers is to spray as soon as the corn is done pollinating, which would be this week,” he advises.

“Throw a hard punch at these fields, because the tar spot and existing disease pressure is there. Then be ready to come back in 21 days with the second shot of fungicide, if warranted, of a cheaper pass. There’s where we throw the generics in, and that pass is to drive stability in your crop stand, so it’ll stand up.”

There are a couple of additional things guiding this application timing. For one thing, Illinois growers still have 60 days to go to protect grain fill in the crop. Another thing to keep in mind, he says, is that the curative factor of a fungicide only covers infections that have happened in the past 48 hours prior to application.

For those fields in Woodford County, Ferrie is telling farmers to wait for their fields to pollinate before pulling the fungicide trigger, because most fields are not at threshold with other diseases present above the ear leaf.

“Again, set up a plan to spray again in 20 to 30 days, and that’ll be weather and disease progression dependent. If we should have a drought – conditions that would slow the disease progress – we might not spray,” Ferrie says. “But If we get the weather pattern to give us a big crop, we most likely will need to spray.”

Ferrie says he understands, given the financial constraints this year, that many corn growers are struggling to spray a fungicide once much less doing so twice this season.

“For the cautious guys out there who are thinking, ‘it ain’t gonna happen, Ferrie; I am not spraying in a $4 corn market,’ this too is a plan. But you need to prepare to go early with your harvest, pre-book some dryer gas and look for pick-up reels,” he advises.

“The good news is we’re ahead of this, and we have experience to fall back on. We have time to react as this does or doesn’t unfold.”

Consider Getting Your Fungicide Applications Booked

Because fungicides need to penetrate the crop canopy and go lower on the plants to address tar spot, that can require adjusting how applicators spray the product.

“If you’re going by air, we need to narrow up the swath,” Ferrie says. “Bigger droplets being applied are the ones that penetrate that canopy, and this goes for planes, helicopters and drones.

“Be aware that when you ask an applicator to cut his swath width by a third, it will come at an increased cost, so be prepared for that. But this step will reduce the streaking issues we often see when spraying tar spot from the air.”

For ground applications to address tar spot, the thing to do is have conversations with your supplier now – plan ahead – as ground rigs cannot cover the same number of acres an aerial applicator can get across in a day. And note, your suppliers probably already had a full lineup of fields to spray before tar spot showed up.

“Remembering back to 2021, growers were waiting two weeks or more to get an application made. If 2025 is a repeat of 2021, we’ll need to go at this from multiple directions,” Ferrie says. “At the end of the day, we need to prepare and scout, scout, scout.”

Sign Up For Farm Journal Corn & Soybean College

Ferrie and his agronomic team at Crop-Tech Consulting are finalizing plans for the annual Farm Journal Corn & Soybean College, as well as the Crop-Tech events.

“These events been approved for 13 CEU credits across four different categories,” he says. “If you need some CEUs, this is a great place to get them.”

The theme for this year’s event is Making A Stand. Topics Ferrie and team are addressing during the two-day program, July 22-23, include:

planter add-ons that pay off
spray nozzle science
in-field planter diagnostics
ear count and rooting depth
bean stress and variety response
integrating soybeans for yield

You can sign up online here or call the Crop-Tech Consulting office to register at (646) 801-0591

Your next read: If You Have an Uneven Corn Crop Pollinating, Consider These 3 Next Steps

Unexpected Impact From Illinois Dust Storm Hits Corn, Soybeans

Wed, 28 May 2025 17:44:08 GMT

It was bad enough Illinois farmers affected by the May 16 dust storm saw priceless topsoil blow off their fields and into the hinterlands. Adding insult to injury, many corn and soybean growers now face not only damaged or destroyed crops but will need to reapply fertilizer and herbicide products in some scenarios, says Ken Ferrie, Farm Journal Field Agronomist.

“If you ever tried to imagine what the Dust Bowl was like in the 1930s all you had to do was be in central Illinois that Friday afternoon,” Ferrie says. “You didn’t need your imagination to experience the Dust Bowl, you got to live it. Now, granted, it was only a few hours long. But it blew soil, it blew residue, it blew trees over, did property damage in some areas, and some of our most precious, McLean County soil was deposited in Lake Michigan.”

On Friday, May 16, 2025, an NOAA satellite captured images of a dust storm that pushed across northern Illinois, northern Indiana and the metropolitan area of Chicago. The dust storm was driven by strong winds, gusting over 60 mph at times.

(NOAA)

Not only McLean County topsoil went north to Chicago and beyond. Ferrie is concerned recent surface-applied herbicides and nitrogen were likely blown away with the soil and residue, too.

“Some of these fields that were sprayed that did not receive a rain to move it into the soil and get it activated are at risk now,” he explains. “We’ll need to keep an eye on these fields for weed escapes and the loss of nitrogen. We can make some estimates on the nitrogen losses with nitrate testing, but herbicide losses will only show up in weed escapes.”

Additional Consequences From The Storm
Ferrie, who is based just south of Bloomington, Ill., reports the dust storm generated a number of farmer requests, calls asking him to come inspect fields for crop damage. He notes that affected cornfields looked like they received a hard frost. With soybeans, some fields had plants sheared off at the ground level.

“In most cases with corn, I saw mainly cosmetic damage, and the corn will bounce back,” Ferrie says. “But in cases where the corn was covered up by dust, the crop will not come back, and it’ll need to be replanted. This occurred mainly where grass strips worked like a snow fence and the dirt piled up on the corn. In some areas buried in residue, we may need to burn that off the field before we can replant.”

Farmers who want to apply fertilizer or herbicides will benefit from holding off making any spray applications until affected crops show signs of a robust recovery, primarily in the form of new growth, he adds.

“Growth out of the whorl tells you that things are getting back on track,” Ferrie says. “We e do want to apply [herbicides] based on weed height, but this would be one time where I would put a pause on it and let this corn recover before we come back in with our post applications.”

Third Consecutive Year Of Spring Dust Storms In Illinois
Rains totaling 1” to 3” in the days following the storm, helped replenish soil moisture levels and start the recovery process in some affected corn and soybean crops.

But Ferrie points out that the dust storm marked the third year in a row such an event has swept through parts of Illinois, and the storms have cast a bad light on production agriculture in the region.

“Guys, we need to step back and take a minute to evaluate what we just witnessed,” Ferrie says. “Our soil went a quarter mile in the air, blew all the way to Chicago, closing roads and causing accidents.”

Such risks and consequences from dust storms are garnering more critical attention from the general public and scientists.

A 10-year study done by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and published by the American Meteorological Society in 2023, found a total of 232 deaths occurred from windblown dust events between 2007 through 2017.

“We found that dust events caused life losses comparable to events like hurricanes and wildfires in some years,” says Daniel Tong, research scientist at NOAA and an associate professor of Atmospheric Oceanic and Earth Sciences at George Mason University, in a news release. “Greater awareness could reduce crashes and possibly save lives.”

Haboobs, another term for intense dust storms, can occur anywhere in the U.S., but are most common in the Southwest , according to the National Weather Service. El Paso, Texas, has seen 10 in 2025 alone, reports Inside Climate News .

El Paso, Texas, has been hit by 10 dust storms so far this year.

(Tom Gill)

Two other recent examples of severe dust storms include:

March 3 – a crash involving 11 vehicles on Interstate 10 occurred near Albuquerque, N.M., left three people dead. Authorities there say heavy dust storms contributed to the crash by severely limiting visibility.

March 14 – Kansas Highway Patrol officials reported eight fatality victims from an Interstate 71-vehicle pileup that occurred during a dust storm.

Fortunately, no fatalities were reported as a result of the Illinois dust storm that occurred May 16.

Calls For Action To Reduce Dust Storm Numbers
A number of individuals and organizations in Illinois are calling for agronomic practices that will prevent or limit such events in the future. One of those is Robert Hirschfeld, Director of Water Policy at Prairie Rivers Network, an independent, state affiliate of the National Wildlife Federation

“These are man-made ecological disasters, driven by a form of agriculture that exploits and depletes the land, leaving millions of acres of soil exposed and eroding for half the year,” Hirschfeld said in a statement distributed three days after the Illinois storm. “We can’t keep farming this way.”

Hirschfeld wants the issue to be addressed formally via legislative action: “If we want real change, we have to move beyond voluntary conservation and start requiring practices that keep soil in place and pollution out of our water.”

Steps Farmers Can Take
While no one can control the weather, farmers can adjust their management practices to reduce the risk of dust storms, according to Illinois Extension. A logical first step is to reduce the number of tillage passes, especially in fields adjacent to busy highways, to begin moving toward conservation tillage.

Additionally, increased soil productivity can be achieved through reduced erosion, enhanced water infiltration, and decreased water evaporation during dry periods, according to the USDA Managing Crop Residues in Corn and Soybeans research report.

Ferrie says many of the farmers he works with are “great stewards of their land and are able to keep their soils in place.”

He advocates using a systems approach in production agriculture that will protect vulnerable soils and other resources (see A System for Every Soil) .

“There are many tools in the toolbox we can use to accomplish this,” he says. “We can work together to implement practices that will eliminate [dust storms] from happening in the future.”

Check out Ferrie’s latest Boots In The Field podcast to hear his specific recommendations and additional insights.

No, You Aren't Crazy: It Is The Windiest Start To Spring In 50 Years

Mon, 21 Apr 2025 16:26:04 GMT

If you are tired of battling the wind this spring, you’re not alone. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reports the windiest start to spring on record, and with wind gusts continuing to grip much of the country, it’s causing headaches for farmers trying to spray herbicide this spring.

“This is the windiest March into early April we’ve had in 50 years,” says Eric Snodgrass, who is Nutrien Ag Solutions’ Principal Atmospheric Scientist. “We’ve had such incredible strong winds, not just here in the Midwest, but also in the Southern Plains. We’ve seen some especially large dust storms at times coming out of Mexico, New Mexico and Texas.”

Snodgrass says it’s safe to say most Americans aren’t enjoying the wind, and that goes for farmers who are forced to change spraying plans due to the wind.

“We’ve had to stop for a couple of days, but it lays down just certain parts of the day and sometimes that’s in the middle of the night, and we’ll take off and spray in the middle of night,” says Bryant Hunter, who farms in Ogden, Iowa.

Just last week, winds were topping 30 mph, making it difficult to even see while planting, let alone getting in the fields to spray.

My spray list after 2 days of wind and 2.5” of rain. pic.twitter.com/aTuWEFcocf
— Eric Earl Mondhink (@emondhinkFH05) April 21, 2025

He says last year was just as challenging with the wind proving to be a constant battle.

“Last year was really hard to spray. We sprayed 3,000 acres in the dark last year,” Hunter says .

Is This a Longer Term Trend?

The bigger question is if it is just a windy start to spring, or if the wind is here for the remainder of the season. There is some good news there.

“Is this part of a longer term trend? Some of the longer term data would say no, but it certainly feels as though we’ve had several springs in a row that have been extremely active with the wind,” Snodgrass says.

There’s No Question; It’s Been a Windy Spring

The windiest start to spring is hitting some places especially hard. Take Michigan for example. Michigan had its windiest March on record. Nine other states had their second windiest.

There are some exceptions, however; northern South Dakota, southern Texas and southern Florida saw some reprieve from the wind.

Recorded wind gusts in Mrch

(Ben Noll, Meteorologist, The Washington Post)

The highest anomalies compared to historical average, shown in dark orange on the map, were 1.6 to 2.4 mph (1 to 1.5 m/s) above that historical average.

In addition, AccuWeather meteorologists found that almost every major city east of the Rockies ranked first or second for the highest average wind gusts for March.

AccuWeather reports Pittsburgh, Atlanta, Little Rock, Kansas City, Indianapolis and Chicago broke their previous average wind gust record for March by a significant margin of 1 mph or more. Indianapolis was the windiest of the windy cities, breaking the previous average wind gust record of 33.69 mph in 2022 by 1.51 mph with a reading of 35.20 mph.

Yesterday, @NOAA's #GOESEast 🛰️ tracked severe #thunderstorms that tore across the central U.S.
Along with flooding rain, the storms produced several reported #tornadoes, as well as more than 100 reports of damaging wind gusts. #GOES19

What's your forecast today?… pic.twitter.com/k2cbBzb50x
— NOAA Satellites (@NOAASatellites) April 21, 2025

But that’s not all. Washington, D.C., New York City, Raleigh, Miami, New Orleans, Amarillo, Dallas, Minneapolis and Sioux Falls were also ranked the No. 1 windiest March. Boston, Jackson and Corpus Christi were No. 2.

AccuWeather says records for these cities go back 77 to 97 years, typically when the airports were built.

More States Join Plant 2025 Thanks to a Break In the Rain

Mon, 14 Apr 2025 21:33:14 GMT

USDA might have started its weekly crop progress updates last Monday , but with warmer soil temps and sunny skies, this weekend certainly seemed like the unofficial kickoff to #plant2025.

Green flag on #plant25 pic.twitter.com/nYOriGSq7Z
— Ryan Heiniger (@FarmrHuntr) April 12, 2025

From Indiana to Oregon, farmers have taken to social media to share their “first day of planting” photos and send well wishes to other growers.

A lot of planters started rolling over the weekend. Soil conditions look great. Wishing everyone a safe and successful planting season!
— Dusty Rich 🇺🇸 (@drich82) April 14, 2025

The progress made the past couple of days will likely be reflected in next week’s crop progress report. As of April 13, USDA says 13 states have started planting corn and 10 are working on soybeans. The report calculates 4% of corn and 2% of soybeans are in the ground so far.

That’s compared to just 2% of corn last week .

These numbers are slightly behind last year at the same time, which were 6% for corn and 3% for soybeans. That could be because some states — such as Ohio and Kentucky — are still seeing the effects of the late March/early April flooding. This year’s windy spring has also caused delays.

Applying NH3 today. Have to hunt around for spots dry enough pic.twitter.com/66CMmAoyre
— Dennis Carnahan (@CarnahanDennis) April 14, 2025

Neighborhood is a buzz today with #Plant25 action. Looks like a good stretch of planting weather ahead. Spraying weather a little less desirable in the forecast. #wind #soybeans pic.twitter.com/QpQyOov38N
— Brent Johnson (@BrentJFF) April 12, 2025

The state that made the most progress in a week’s time was North Dakota – jumping from 6% to 19% of the corn crop in the ground. Louisiana also made progress in soybeans, up from 11% last week to 22% this week.

The next few days look promising for farmers to continue rolling in the field, but the weekend might bring another round of storms and showers.

Becoming increasingly concerned not only about severe weather potential late this week and beyond - but additional excessive rain and flooding threats.

Weekend trends bumped up rain potential through the end of the month big time.

This will be extremely impactful from… pic.twitter.com/IAZwIAwMar
— BAM Weather (@bam_weather) April 14, 2025

So, have you hit the fields yet?

pic.twitter.com/DaCb8sHrpJ
— Shay Foulk (@FoulkShay) April 14, 2025

Your Next Read: 60% Drought Risk? The Latest Forecast For The 2025 Growing Season

Goodbye, La Niña? Eric Snodgrass Dissects What the Shift Means for Weather This Spring and Summer

Fri, 14 Mar 2025 21:12:49 GMT

La Niña is weakening, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) expects neutral conditions to develop in the next month . But even with La Niña fading, meteorologists are still concerned about drought this spring and summer.

NOAA this week said forecasters expect ENSO-neutral conditions to develop in the next month and persist through the Northern Hemisphere’s summer. According to NOAA, La Niña’s signature is cooler-than-average surface water in the east-central tropical Pacific, stronger-than-average trade winds, and drier conditions over the central Pacific.

ENSO-neutral means conditions could be close to average, but Eric Snodgrass, Nutrien’s principal atmospheric scientist, says that doesn’t mean the weather will be normal this spring and summer.

“I do expect changes,” Snodgrass says. “Think about it like this: The previous winter was an El Niño winter, and it was very mild and very wet. So, we got into spring ’24 with tons of moisture. I mean, Iowa, Minnesota and South Dakota flooded out. Then we had this incredibly dry fall as the La Niña began, and it reached a peak twice. It actually hit a peak in December, and then a secondary peak about a month later at the end of January. It’s been fading ever since. The big question is, as we go into neutral conditions for this upcoming growing season, is it going to be one that paints a picture of precipitation extremes? Did it leave us with any sort of kind of problems from winter that are carrying over?”

Snodgrass says the severe weather outbreaks on Friday, that brought high winds, dust storms and wildfire warnings across the Plains, is a reminder how dry it is in the Southwest.

“We’ve got major pockets of the country that are still dealing with some pretty big drought conditions. It is fading, and that is a signal we have to pay attention to,” Snodgrass says.

USDA meteorologist Brad Rippey is also concerned about what impact the shifting pattern will have on farmers this spring. But it’s not just the dryness. It’s also the fact areas are getting inundated with rains that could pose problems.

“With this stormy weather pattern in place, that is going to create some difficulty for spring field work in some areas. It looks like the primary storm track may be through parts of the middle of the country extending into the lower Midwest and eventually the interior northeast. That is one area where we already have fairly wet conditions,” Rippey says.

How sea surface temperatures in the Niño-3.4 region of the tropical Pacific changed over the course of all La Niña events since 1950 (gray lines) and 2024-25 (black line). This shows the traditional calculation for Niño-3.4, the monthly temperature compared to the most recent 30-year average (1991–2020 for the 2024 line). By this measure, the La Niña threshold was crossed in December 2024, but La Niña remains weak.

(NOAA)

La Niñas and El Niños Are Strongest in the Winter
Snodgrass points out La Niñas and El Niños are always strongest in Northern Hemisphere’s winter, which means they fade in spring and summer.

While La Niña-like conditions were a trademark in late fall, we didn’t reach the official definition of La Niña until January.

“The atmosphere way back in November was already treating our winter timeframe like a La Niña,” Snodgrass says. So, we were getting the influences of it as it comes in and goes out. And now the question is, what’s it going to do?”

February 2025 sea surface temperature compared to the 1985-1993 average. The surface of the east-central tropical Pacific is slightly below average temperature, but much of the global ocean remains warmer than average.

(NOAA )

“This is a great map to look at,” Snodgrass says, referencing the map above. “If you focus right in the middle, you see the large area of the cooler colors. Our line is now shifting to the central and West Pacific and behind it over by South America. All of the warmer water is beginning to emerge. And that’s what’s killing it because there’s a trade wind across that area from the east to the west. We’re going to watch this fade carefully during the spring. But the question is: Do we get winter’s leftovers?”

What Fueled the Dryness This Winter?
During the winter, Snodgrass points out there was no subtropical jet. That’s what fueled drought in the Southwest and Northwest.

“I’m actually kind of worried about the beginning of April having another shot at cold air after what we’ve been experiencing in March, which has been so very, very mild. Then you say, well, we’ve had so much dry air in place. Are we still worried about more dry air coming back? To be honest, these big storm systems coming through the central U.S., if we could get four, maybe five more of those by early April, we’re going to hate it. It’s nasty weather. It’s not fun, and it’s dangerous, but it returns moisture. That could be part of the mix of things, including the fading of La Niña that could help bring us away from these major early season drought risk scenarios.”

55% of corn production, 46% of soybean production, 33% of the cotton growing area and 27% of the winter wheat production are currently experiencing drought.

(U.S. Drought Monitor )

Growing Drought Concerns
What if it doesn’t? What if we don’t see more of this severe weather hit the Southwest and Plains, and moisture remains absent as we get into the height of spring? Well, the area will enter into the height of the growing season dry and reduce their chances of seeing moisture this summer.

“That’s a box we check every spring,” Snodgrass says. “If the drought monitor saw a reduction in drought over winter, then that gives us a different look for spring. But what we see here is two-thirds of the country in some stage of drought, including the abnormally dry category. But it’s the epicenters of drought that are so concerning. Look at the Western Corn Belt. Look at the Southwest. We just wonder if that funnels into the Mississippi Valley as we go forward.”

At the same time some areas are seeing drought, Kentucky, southern Indiana, southern Illinois, Tennessee, Arkansas and the boot heel of Missouri are all experiencing heavy rains and flooding.

“By May 11, I want to know what the drought monitor map looks like. If it looks no different, then I’m going to be sounding alarms going into summer with concerns this will start to creep and move because as soon as we get into the summer weather, all we get is convective storms pop off. And what do they do? They just locally deliver rain - not big broad swaths of it,” Snodgrass says.

Tale of Two Weather Scenarios
He says the forecast leading up to May 11 is a tale of two weather patterns, with the Mississippi River being the dividing line for moisture.

“If you are along it and east of it, I think we’re going to have tight windows to plant. You could include a little bit more of Missouri, Iowa and Minnesota in that as well,” Snodgrass says. “I think we’re going to see repeated storm systems. The best moisture is east. It keeps avoiding that southern plains area.”

What to Watch: Where the Storm Chasers End Up
Snodgrass says if storm chasers are busying chasing severe weather across the Ohio Valley, the mid-south and the southeast, but not in Kansas and the Plains, that’s a key indicator there’s a problem with the moisture getting back into the plains.

“If it’s not there by the time we start June, it’s very difficult to rely on the atmosphere to return it once you get into the summer months if you live in the central plains, which is where they could build from,” he adds.

To watch the complete discussion with Snodgrass, visit Farm Journal TV and take advantage of the free trial.

Your Next Read:
Ag Meterologists Worry More Drought Lies Ahead For Spring

Winter Storm Wallops the U.S. With Heaviest Snowfall in a Decade, Southern States Brace for Round 2

Wed, 08 Jan 2025 14:53:49 GMT

A powerful winter storm swept through the central United States earlier this week and unleashed snow, ice and high winds. It also left behind dangerously cold temperatures across a wide swath of the U.S.

The National Weather Service (NWS) warned some areas experienced the “heaviest snowfall in at least a decade,” and those forecasts held true, with more than a foot of snow falling north of Interstate 70.

“For locations in this region that receive the highest snow totals, it may be the heaviest snowfall in at least a decade,” the weather service stated.

The storm extended its reach into the Ohio Valley and Mid-Atlantic states, bringing frigid conditions as far south as Florida. “Temperatures could be 12 to 25 degrees below normal,” forecasters cautioned, with wind chills creating dangerously cold conditions.

What’s Driving the Winter Storms to Start 2025?

Southern U.S. braced for round two, with ice and snow forecast to fall in Texas and areas of the Southern U.S. The icy storm could impact 20 states.

“Starting back several weeks ago, we drifted into a weather pattern that even though we don’t have La Nina, it is very consistent with what you would expect during La Nina,” says Brad Rippey, USDA meteorologist.

Rippey says one of the trademarks of La Nina are the episodic cold outbreaks.

“It just so happens that this time we’ve got a couple of Pacific storm systems riding right along that boundary between the colder air to the north, the warmer air to the south. And that lead system earlier in the week really took advantage of that temperature gradient, cold north, warm south, which is why we saw just about every imaginable weather phenomenon under the sun over a period of a couple of days,” says Rippey.

No, we don't need to talk about this yet -- too far in the future for one model [ECMWF 00z] scenario -- 14 days.

The episode of cold -- happening now -- was predicted to be much more harsh, and it washed out at the expense of multiple snow storms everywhere. pic.twitter.com/L4QmL0N20J
— Ryan Maue (@RyanMaue) January 8, 2025

Rippey says the remainder of January will bring more winter weather and the bursts of cold.

“At least for the time being, we are in a southern storm track and that is going to keep things pretty active for the foreseeable future,” says Rippey.

Enduring the Cold and Snow, Plus a Helping Hand

The ice and snow paralyzed traffic in places, leaving hundreds of vehicles stranded along the roads in Kansas and Missouri.

If we know one thing about rural areas, it’s the willingness to help a neighbor in need, and that was on full display this week. One tractor helped push cars that were stranded in the snow.

@kaaelliiii #blizzard #snowday #snowstorm #midwest #country @John Deere #tractor #tiktok #viral #mercedes ♬ APT. - ROSÉ & Bruno Mars

And there may be an art to pushing snow, but central Missouri farmer Gavin Spoor compared it to a harvesting crew.

@thepopcornfarmer
♬ original sound - GavinSpoor

Watching the Weather

What’s the forecast for the rest of the week? Check out the latest AgDay weather.

More Wind, Rain and Hail Likely Ahead in June

Wed, 29 May 2024 20:14:22 GMT

The long line of severe storms that swept across the Midwest on Friday – from parts of Nebraska, through Iowa and into Illinois – has been officially classified a derecho by the Storm Prediction Center.

The Center classifies derechos as a wind damage swath that “extends more than 240 miles and has wind gusts of at least 58 mph or greater along most of the length of the storm’s path.”

It signaled the start of what became a severe weather weekend and a 2024 Memorial Day, with dozens of reports of strong winds, rain or hail hitting many parts of the U.S.

“We have obviously seen an absolutely, astronomically high number of severe weather reports over the last month,” says Michael Clark, chief meteorologist for BAMWX.com.

Clark says during May alone, there have been 469 tornadoes, 3,475 severe wind events and 1,640 severe hail events in the U.S. The number of storms reported is one of the highest for the month of May, if not the highest, since 2011. See You Can Now Blame El Niño and La Niña For the Extreme Weather Outbreaks, Planting Delays This Spring

“I’m looking at the map right now, and it’s almost as if every state east of the Rockies has reported a tornado during the month somewhere,” he says. “It’s kind of hard to wrap your head around how much there’s been.”

A Tough Transition Is Underway
While the number of storms this month has been unusually high, their occurrence has been expected meteorologists say, as the country transitions away from an El Niño into a La Niña.

“In spring, whenever you see these transitions, severe weather is amplified quite a bit,” Clark says.

According to the National Centers for Environmental Prediction, there is a 49% chance La Niña develops between June and August, and a 69% likelihood it will be in place sometime between July and September.

Clark and his meteorologist colleague Bret Walts told AgriTalk Host Chip Flory that they are predicting La Niña will be in place sooner than later – likely by July.

“I think that the atmosphere has already been trying to respond to that,” Walts says. “We’ve certainly seen it with this severe weather.”

More Rough Weather Ahead This Summer
Walts believes high winds and big rainstorms will continue throughout late spring and into the summer months. See Iowa Crews Search For Survivors After Deadly Tornadoes

“I’m concerned that as the heat ramps up later on into June and July that we could get more of these derechos going through,” Walts says.

In addition, Walts and Clark are concerned significant heat domes will occur over the Corn Belt and rain events will slow significantly as the second half of the growing season gets underway. See Expect a Hotter Than Normal Summer This Year

“When La Niña sets in, I am under the impression that in the later part of the growing season the moisture will be potentially shutting off,” Clark says. “This happens in big hurricane seasons where that ridge of heat sets up over the northern U.S., over the Great Lakes. It steers hurricanes into the Gulf of Mexico, but it shuts off precipitation in the Corn Belt.

“That’s a concern I have this year,” Clark adds. “These very wet springs with a lot of moisture going into La Niñas historically don’t really turn out to be very friendly the second half of summer.”

The complete weather conversation is available on AgriTalk here:

Severe Snowstorm Forecasted to Dump Multiple Feet of Snow

Fri, 05 Jan 2024 21:08:28 GMT

As the calendar flipped to the new year, Mother Nature unleashed the potential for back-to-back blasts of winter weather. From the possibility of blizzard conditions early next week, to flooding in the southeast, the impact on agriculture could be two-fold: a possible cure for drought conditions in parts of the Plains and South, but stressful for livestock.

USDA meteorologist Brad Rippey says the forecast is pointing to a very active weather winter pattern in January, which is a hallmark of El Niño.

“There’s no question about it. As I always say, you can’t blame an individual or a single storm and El Niño, but you start looking at the overall patterns, and there’s absolutely no question that when you start seeing a pattern setting up like this, a storm pipeline from the Pacific coming across the Southwest and into the Midwest or east, that is El Niño,” Rippey says.

Eric Snodgrass is a well-known ag meteorologist who’s also watching the change in potential winter weather this month. He says El Niño reached its peak at the end of December.

“It has plateaued. And what that typically means is we tend to have what we call a back-half weighted winter, which means December is usually pretty mild, not a whole lot to talk about, but once we get going into this new year, that jet stream is really going to start to become quite a bit more active,” Snodgrass says.

Active Jet Stream Set to Bring Multiple Winter Storms

The active jet stream is exactly what the U.S. is now seeing, with multiple storms lined up for the start of the year. Rippey says it’s an active storm track that starts in the South, eventually ending up along the East Coast.

“The storm that’s coming out late this week, it’s going to be a decent storm system - a decent winter storm. But it’s going to pale in comparison to the blockbuster storm that we see coming for early next week,” he says.

High Plains with current storm 53% covered in shallow layer of snow. Feet of snow on the way? pic.twitter.com/fAZzWeHurr
— Allen Motew (@QTweather) January 5, 2024

Snowfall reports from the National Weather Service (NWS) Albuquerque, New Mexico station shows impressive snowfall already falling in the Rocky Mountains. As of midday Friday, January 5, NWS reports 10 to 18 inch snowfall totals in the southern Rockies before it made its way across Kansas.

Eye-Popping Snowfall Totals Possible

However, Rippey says this first snow system isn’t the headline. Early to mid-week next week, a different significant storm will emerge from the Southwest and Four Corners region, which could bring monstrous snowfall totals.

“That storm will be going across the Central and Southern Plains Monday and reach the lower Great Lakes region by Wednesday,” Rippey says. “That system really has the potential to create a wide degree of disarray across the country.”

(Farm Journal)

The storm early next week will pack a punch with high winds, but it will also bring much needed drought relief. NOAA is warning of weather impacts that will span from Coast to Coast. They report heavy snow is likely in the higher elevation with blizzard conditions possible. The high winds are expected to hit much of the Central and Eastern U.S., with some winds exceeding 50 MPH.

“Some of them can be big snow makers through parts of the Midwest and some of them are putting down some heavy rains across the South,” Snodgrass says. “And the big picture here is that our U.S. Drought Monitor, which still shows about 50% to 55% of the land area in some form of drought, about one-third of it in the drought categories, that could really change a lot in the coming weeks.”

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow. Winter arrives finally. 10 days from now mountains, West, Plains, North BURIED! pic.twitter.com/EbPLLFlB74
— Allen Motew (@QTweather) January 5, 2024

The winter storm is forecasted to bring heavy snow, which could provide relief for winter wheat country.

“We’ve already chipped away at the drought across the Great Plains,” Rippey says. “If you look at USDA’s winter wheat condition, we saw improvement from the end of November to the end of December. Kansas winter wheat jumped from 32% good to excellent at the end of November to 43% in December. Oklahoma saw a big jump from 53% to 67% good to excellent. So more moisture, more snow - that’ll be good news for winter wheat.

(Farm Journal)

While the storm system will bring much needed relief, it could also pose problems for livestock producers.

“As the storm crosses the southern Great Plains and moves into the Midwest, we’re going to have a big wind-driven snow event. So certainly, some livestock stress. And then for the Southeast, those folks where it’s not a drought situation, they could be dealing with flooding and flash flooding, as well as our first significant severe weather outbreak of the season early next week,” Rippey says.

Euro model... 😳❄️🌨️ pic.twitter.com/PqZKmP7G0W
— Darin D. Fessler ✝️ (@DDFalpha) January 5, 2024

Much Need Moisture in Areas

As the south braces for impacts of the forecasted storms, Snodgrass says that moisture is desperately needed.

“The South has been, in my opinion, on the wildest ride with moisture in the last 24 months compared to any other place on the planet at this point,” he says.

And as this El Niño pattern takes hold, Snodgrass thinks cotton country could final see some relief this winter.

“I think the best chance for recovery and moisture is going to be across the South, pockets of the Mid-South, the Southeast and in the East Coast,” Snodgrass says. “That track from Texas to South Carolina to Maine, I like it. That area is going to be getting some good moisture.”

It’s not just snow that producers will need to brace for, but temperatures are forecast to plunge with a possible Artic blast. Weather models are pointing to extremely cold and extreme Arctic air also moving in.

Still watching historic climate emergency risk from Arctic blast 📉❄️🌡️

Overnight weather model [ECMWF HRES 00Z] still shows historic Arctic blast into the Pacific Northwest and Western U.S. in 6-7 days.

Extremely cold w/potential for snowfall along California coast including… pic.twitter.com/PsNLPAccdj
— Ryan Maue (@RyanMaue) January 5, 2024

The Duration of El Niño

Snodgrass says the question is how long until El Niño fades, and the impact it could have on the spring.

“If El Niño peaks right now and begins to fade throughout the rest of winter and into spring, I’ve looked at every event since 1960, and most times when that happens, we tend to do okay in the Midwest the following year in terms of precipitation. That’s not a guarantee, but you look at historically, we tend to go out of ridge riding storms, which are often the types of storms that save crops,” he says.

That scenario, however, spells trouble for key growing areas of the South this spring and summer.

“The only way you can get a ridge riding storm system, though, is to put heat and drought across the South. That’s the Cotton Belt that could be impacted negatively by that,” Snodgrass says. “That’s all speculative. But that’s all you got this time of years to base it off of those bigger picture things.”

Areas of the Country Could Still Be Dry This Spring

With the active storms to start the year, there are still pockets of the country that need much more moisture to replenish dry soils before spring.

“I’m worried about the Northern Plains,” Snodgrass says. “I’m worried about the Canadian Prairie on drought. I’m worried about the lack of snowfall we’ve had so far in parts of the upper Midwest. We need to be piling a whole lot more snow there.”

The debate of just how long El Niño will last is heating up. There’s even talk of La Nina making a return this year. There’s no certainty either way, but for now, Snodgrass says a strong shot of winter weather isn’t a bad thing.

“I’ll just tell you this, the nastiest winters we’ve ever had, have almost always given us fantastic springs and summers,” he says. “So, I hate to say it, but I’m wishing for just a terrible second half of winter so that I can talk to you next spring summer and say, ‘Hey wasn’t that terrible? But now look what we got out of it.’”

Related News:

What impact did El Nino have on the weather in 2023?

Ferrie: Derecho Took 20 to 30 Bu. Off the Top of April Corn but Don’t Throw in the Towel

Wed, 05 Jul 2023 20:54:37 GMT

For many farmers in Illinois this week, the positive news is they got some much-needed rain on long-struggling crops on Thursday. The downside – in many fields the rain fell in tandem with 80 to 100 mph straight-line winds.

The derecho-style storm knocked down fields of corn and even soybeans in parts of Illinois, Indiana, Iowa and northern Missouri.
Corn nearing pollination will take the biggest hit to yield outcomes at harvest, according to Ken Ferrie, Farm Journal Field Agronomist, who’s based in central Illinois just south of Bloomington.

He says the fields most affected, much of which was planted in April, could see between 20 and 30 bushels per acre of corn knocked off final yield outcomes at harvest.

However, he adds, those same fields were struggling so much this season from extreme drought they were on track to lose at least 40 to 50 bushels per acre of corn yield before the rain arrived.

“That inch of water will bring back a lot of those fields. It broke the bubble that was holding us in the drought,” he says.

Furthermore, he says the central Illinois forecast for the next week indicates some rain is likely to fall there during five out of seven days.

Read Tyne Morgan’s coverage of the derecho and its impact on Midwest crops here: Derecho Packs Punch of 100 MPH Winds, Flattens Cornfields and Crushes Grain Bins Across the Midwest

Short-Term Decisions, Long-Term Consequences
Ferrie encourages farmers affected by the storm to keep scouting crops and applying the nutrients, fungicides, insecticides and other inputs that might be needed.

“Be looking for silks in that corn crop that’s needing to get pollinated. You don’t want to lose silks to Japanese beetles or other silk clippers,” he says.

Corn requires at least a half inch of fresh silk to pollinate. Under the extremely dry conditions, silk growth has been slow and pollen viability has been sorely challenged, Ferrie notes.

With the storm damage that occurred, pollination could be more difficult to achieve in some cornfields, says Matt Duesterhaus, an agronomist with Crop-Tech Consulting who works with farmers in western Illinois and northeast Missouri. One of his concerns is that downed corn might have silks that are now on the ground and partially covered by vegetation.

“Corn is designed for the silks to come off the top of the plant like a fountain, so it can catch the pollen,” Duesterhaus says. “If corn’s on the ground with the silks shaded or covered over by corn leaves and stalks, that could make it a challenge for pollination to occur. It’s not something we can fix, but it is something that we want to monitor.”

Ferrie adds that due to the unevenness of the corn crop across much of the region, it will take about two weeks for pollination to occur in some fields.

“In an ideal world, I like to see a whole field pollinate in three days, but that’s a pipe dream in most fields this year due to the drought conditions we’ve had,” Ferrie says.

Read more about how to evaluate pollination here: Ferrie: Check Corn Pollination, Prepare to Spray if Heavy Pest Feeding is Underway

Stay On Top Of The Corn Crop
Thursday’s storm doesn’t make working with this year’s corn any easier, as farmers face trying to spray a crop that’s leaning at best and snapped off at worst.

“If it hasn’t been sidedressed yet, a lot of farmers are probably going to have to switch gears and bring in an airplane and apply nitrogen from the air,” Ferrie says. “A lot of growers were waiting for the crop to get about shoulder height to Y-drop. Now, all of a sudden, that corn is twisted up and you can’t get through it by ground.”

But Ferrie emphasizes that if growers have a crop that stands back up and has some yield potential, they need to finish their planned agronomic program for it.

“Some of you are thinking about throwing in the towel and not spraying. That’s what we call a walking away from a growing crop, and this is something you should never do,” Ferrie says.

Duesterhaus agrees and says he realizes some farmers might not want to spray their corn with a fungicide this year, because of the expense. “Another way to evaluate the situation is to evaluate the crop and try to determine what it’s worth? What yield potential is left out there to protect?” he says.

Beware Spider Mites In Soybeans
April-planted soybeans are a bright spot for a lot of farmers this season. Many of those early-planted acres are in full bloom across Illinois now. While the derecho flattened many soybeans, they are likely to rebound and do fine with time.

Ferrie is more concerned about the potential for severe spider mite infestations and recommends farmers watch for that problem this week and be prepared to treat.

“Beneficials help, but the big predator for spider mite is fungus,” Ferrie says. “Even with the rain, if this drought ticks on, we’ll have less and less fungus to take up the spider mites.”

Another concern is treating corn with a fungicide and adding an insecticide in the mix that can kill mites before there is an economic threshold present.

“By the time the mites are a problem, your insecticide will have run its course and you’ll be spraying again and what’s available to spray isn’t what we had to work with 10 years ago,” he adds. “Today, most of our labeled products kill only the adults and don’t get the eggs, so you’ll be spraying again in 10 to 14 days.”

Ferrie says to talk with your retailer to put together a couple of plans, so you have options on how to handle a spider mite outbreak.

In the meantime, be scouting soybeans for the pest, Duesterhaus encourages. “If we get the rain they’re calling for here and the temperatures stay moderate, we might be able to forget about spider mites, and they might not be an issue. But if it stays at 85-degrees plus with low humidity, they could come on strong and we’ll need to be ready to spray.”

To get the complete agronomic update from this week’s Boots In The Field report, you can listen to the podcast here.

Derecho Packs Punch of 100 MPH Winds, Flattens Cornfields and Crushes Grain Bins Across the Midwest

Fri, 30 Jun 2023 21:00:54 GMT

Hurricane-force winds swept through northern Missouri and Iowa and all the way east to Illinois and Indiana on Thursday. The derecho brought wind gusts up to 100 mph in places, flattening cornfields. The storm system also brought crucial rains. While it might not be enough to cure the drought, the rains could help rescue some of the drought-ravaged crops.

According to Accuweather, a derecho is a storm that brings a punch of at least 58 mph winds over the span of at least 400 miles. The storm on Thursday barreled across the Midwest, with some of hardest-hit states being Iowa, Illinois and Indiana. The storm then turned and went south, hitting Tennessee.

Yesterday, @NOAA's #GOESEast 🛰️ tracked a destructive #derecho as it raced across the Midwest, causing widespread damage across several states. This visible imagery shows the bubbling clouds, and the satellite's Geostationary Lightning Mapper allowed us to see the frequent… pic.twitter.com/SvYbnuf5em
— NOAA Satellites (@NOAASatellites) June 30, 2023

Ken Ferrie , owner of Crop-Tech Consulting, was in the middle of the storm. He spoke to AgWeb’s Rhonda Brooks about potential damage, estimating the derecho crossed at least two-thirds of Illinois.

“It’s pretty widespread,” says Ferrie who lives in Heyworth, Ill., just south of Bloomington. “It hit between 12:30 p.m. to 1 p.m. yesterday.”

The storm also brought more than an inch of much-needed rain, which may have saved many of the Illinois corn and soybean crops. Ferrie says there is quite a bit of cleanup that will need to take place with down trees and other damage, and he’s still trying to assess the impact on the crops.

“I have not seen any corn snapped like the derecho in Iowa where crops were just snapped and flat, but there’s a lot of corn laying over,” says Ferrie.

USDA meteorologist Brad Rippey says the storm was widespread, impacting an area from the Central Great Plains and northern Missouri, all the way to the Tennessee River Valley.

“The derecho on June 29th was oddly reminiscent of the massive derecho that struck the Midwest on August 10, 2020,” he says. “Now the aerial extent was not quite as large as the August 2020 events and the winds were not quite as high. But nevertheless, we did see widespread 60 to 100 mph winds emerging early in the day on the 29th.”

Brad Rippey discusses the scope and possible scale of damage caused by the derecho this week.

Rippey says the timing of the storm could also be a key factor in determining how much damage it caused to crops.

“We’re not expecting to see the large scale impact that we saw compared to August 2020, partly because it’s earlier in the growing season crops are not as high and susceptible to damage,” says Rippey. “And also just the fact that winds weren’t quite as high and the areal extent wasn’t as great. Still, though, another blow for producers already reeling from drought now contending with the effects of a significant windstorm that blew through the area on June 29th.”

Earlier Planted Corn Hit the Hardest

Ferrie drove across parts of Illinois and into Iowa on Friday, and says he thinks the earlier planted corn is what will be impacted the most from the powerful storm this week.

“April-planted corn is pushing tassels and trying to pollinate, so unfortunately, it’ll get hit the hardest because it’s hard for tasseled corn to stand back up; it’ll just curve at the top,” says Ferrie. “And that down corn creates pollination problems. So, from a yield problem that’ll be the tough spot, and that’ll be the tougher stuff to harvest because it just won’t stand back up.”

First time in my life I’ve pulled up to my parents place and not seen the grain leg standing. The storm hit hard today, but it’s wild in that the corn didn’t get mangled any worse than it did. No one got hurt which is the main thing. pic.twitter.com/Kg0hVyKi5V
— Matthew Bennett (@chief321) June 29, 2023

He says the May-planted corn will still have time to stand back up and recover, but he also points out the later planted corn is seeing more impacts from the drought in Illinois. The corn that farmers planted later didn’t establish good roots as it has seen little to no rain since planting. That made the corn more vulnerable to wind damage.

“We have a lot of acres that are getting what I call restless corn syndrome and struggling to get crown roots made. And that stuff isn’t pollinating. It’s the later planted crop that’s probably some of the worst,” says Ferrie.

Storm damage in Illinois from today. Any damage to your farm? pic.twitter.com/RWOHDjPQ2U
— IL Corn (@ilcorn) June 29, 2023

While the wind may impact yields and create harvest issues for some of the crops, the water came at a crucial time, especially in Illinois.

“That inch of water, many farmers would probably take the wind in the corn to get the water, because it looked like we weren’t going to get any of it, and suddenly our forecast has rain for the next five out of six days,” says Ferrie. “So, it kind of broke that bubble that was holding us in the drought.”

Soybeans weren’t spared from damage either, but Ferrie says the drink of water will also be a boost for those fields. He reports there are even soybean fields laid over from the derecho winds on Thursday.

Indiana also reported high winds, with gusts reaching 70 mph at Indianapolis International Airport. Indiana farm fields were dealt with derecho damage this week, too. Photos show corn blown over by the wind, with the later planted corn holding up better than what was planted earlier in the season this year.

Photo Courtesy: Joelle Orem, Russiaville, Indiana

Crop Comments: How do crops look in your area? Post a comment or photo in Crop Comments.

Digging Into the Culprit of the Rare and Unusual Illinois Dust Storm

Wed, 03 May 2023 14:07:57 GMT

A dust storm in Illinois on Monday caused a 72-car pile-up along I-55. Multiple fatalities were also reported. The Illinois State Police said Monday the pileups were caused by “excessive winds blowing dirt from farm fields across the highway, resulting in zero visibility.”

The interstate remained shut down until Tuesday morning. Officials said the first crash was reported at 10:55 a.m. Monday in the northbound lanes near Milepost 76, just south of Springfield.

And this is partly why I am starting to support mandatory conservation practices in exchange for accepting any and all taxpayer subsidies. If we farmers want public support we need to provide public goods AND services! https://t.co/SAqBpH4Nrg
— Paul Overby (@VerdiPlus) May 1, 2023

As more details came to light Tuesday, some reports blamed “freshly plowed fields and gusty winds” as the culprit of the dust storm. There were even calls for support for mandatory conservation practices.

News reporting the Illinois incident as a pileup from a dust storm…I think it should be reported as a pileup from ag pollution.
— GOTILLA (@SoMN_Stripper) May 2, 2023

USDA meteorologist Brad Rippey says dust storms in the Midwest are unusual. But he says the incident in Illinois was sparked by the combination of bare soils in the spring, 55-plus mile per-hour winds and the direction of those winds coming across the highway. He called it an unfortunate “perfect storm,” and one that more than likely wasn’t preventable.

“Even in perfect conditions you can get and you know perfect practices, you can still get a situation where you have a very short window. If topsoil is dry, they can still blow,” says Rippey. “So, I think it was a really unfortunate collision of events that happened yesterday between the strong storm, the angle of the wind, the condition of the fields and the dryness over the last month. There may be no way to really prevent that, and it’s just a real tragedy. Hopefully, it’s a one-off and we won’t see anything else like this this spring.”

Rippey says he’s seen an explosion of cover crop use over the past decade. And while he doesn’t know the exact practices adopted on the fields that experienced the dirt to pick up and blow, he says there can still be a window of time between when some of the cover crops are sprayed and when summer crops emerge and start to canopy.

Rippey attributes the following factors to the unusual dust storm in Illinois Monday:

Westerly to northwesterly winds (45 to 55+ mph) generated by a stalled low-pressure system over the Great Lakes were nearly perpendicular to a major highway (I-55).
Those high winds crossed agricultural fields before reaching I-55, leading to a narrow streamer of blowing dust and abrupt reductions in visibility.
Topsoil was primed to be lofted into the air by short-term dryness – April rainfall in the area totaled about 2 inches, roughly half of normal.
Fields were tilled for planting or had just been planted, leaving topsoil exposed (until a crop canopy forms in a few weeks). By April 30, corn planting was 40% complete in Illinois, soybeans were 39% planted.

“I suspect that some of these fields that blew yesterday had already been planted, we just didn’t have any emergence, or canopy establishment at this point,” says Rippey. “The topsoil, which is that thin layer right on top, is still exposed to the blowing wind.”

Rippey points out that the other factor is how dry portions of Central Illinois have been over the past month.

“If you look at Central and Southern Illinois, we’ve only seen about two inches of rain over the last month. That’s about half normal, and it left conditions just dry enough where that thin layer of topsoil can be lofted by the wind, which unfortunately reached 55 miles per hour, and took it right across a major highway,” says Rippey.

He points out that other weather events—like snow and heavy rainfall—are not an uncommon cause of accidents in the eastern U.S. However, rarely does that part of the country see blowing dirt.

“It usually has to happen just in that short window in the spring, when fields are exposed, open and bear, and then have that high wind blowing across it at the perfect angle,” says Rippey.

He says where the threat is still high is in the Plains. Even with the recent rains, extreme drought and high winds are still a concern.

Illinois Dust Storm Blinds Drivers, Causes Fatal Chain-Reaction Crashes

Tue, 02 May 2023 13:56:08 GMT

A dust storm that cut visibility to near zero on Monday triggered a series of chain-reaction crashes involving dozens of vehicles on an Illinois highway, killing six people and injuring at least two dozen others, authorities said.

Roughly 40 to 60 passenger cars and 30 commercial vehicles, including numerous tractor-trailer trucks, were involved in the pileup around 11 a.m. CT (1200 ET) on Interstate 55 in southern Illinois, state police said in a news release.

Two of the big-rig trucks caught fire as a result.

The crashes occurred on both sides of I-55 along a 2-mile stretch of the highway near the town of Farmersville, about 200 miles (320 km) southwest of Chicago, police said.

More than 30 people were transported to area hospitals with injuries, ranging from minor to life-threatening, and the patients ranged in age from 2- to 80-years-old, police said.

Joletta Hill, chief deputy for the Montgomery County Coroner’s Office, confirmed by telephone that at least six people were confirmed dead from the accidents. No details were immediately available about the fatalities.

Local media posted video footage of the scene showing smashed cars and trucks crumpled against one another, some of them on the shoulder of the highway. The clip showed one truck burning amid a thick haze of dust and smoke.

State police said the pileups were caused by “excessive winds blowing dirt from farm fields across the highway, resulting in zero visibility.”

A 17-mile stretch of the highway was closed in both directions for several hours, state police said.

(Reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Additional reporting by Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles; Editing by Tim Ahmann, Cynthia Osterman and Lincoln Feast.)

USDA’s Cover Crop Program Would be Made Permanent through Biden's Budget

Fri, 10 Mar 2023 22:23:44 GMT

A $6.8 trillion budget proposal was released by the Biden administration on Thursday with the continued “bottom up, middle out” theme, according to USDA.

“The President’s budget provides USDA with the tools needed to serve all Americans by providing effective, innovative science-based public policy leadership at home and around the world,” Tom Vilsack, USDA secretary said in a press release .

The proposed budget includes:

• $19 trillion to be borrowed through FY 2033
• 10.2 trillion in interest on national debt
• $3 trillion in debt deficit reduction
• $6.9 trillion for spending

So, what’s ag’s stake in the $6.8 trillion plan? As is generally the theme in a farm bill, nutrition would take most of the cake.

Nutrition and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)

According to the release, the administration anticipates 6.5 million people will participate in SNAP. To meet these “critical” SNAP needs, the proposal devotes $6.3 billion of a total $7.1 billion in nutrition for SNAP.

“The budget also includes $15 billion over 10 years to allow more states and schools to leverage participation in the community eligibility provision to provide healthy and free school meals to an additional 9 million children,” the release says.

Ensuring SNAP availability is one obstacle. Ensuring food is available for purchase is another issue the budget looks to address.

Supply Chain Resilience

COVID-19 and the Russia–Ukraine war exposed many broken supply chain links. To solder the chain back together, the White House plans to create programs that will:

• Bolster markets through oversight by the Agricultural Marketing Service.
• Safeguard livestock against pests and disease through Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) investments.
• Ensure “safe and healthy” work environments by hiring more inspectors and health officials.

“These programs build on the pandemic and supply chain assistance funding in the American Rescue Plan to address COVID-19 pandemic-related vulnerabilities in the food system,” the plan says.

The supply chain won’t be the only sector to see new or reestablished programs. A similar approach will also be taken up in the climate department.

Climate Resilience

Cover crop pilot programs would be made permanent if this budget were to pass.

With $208 million more in conservation funds from the 2023 enacted funding level, the NRCS would work to “increase the voluntary adoption of conservation practices that sequester carbon and reduce greenhouse gas emissions associated with agricultural production.”

Related article: Producers Eliminate Fungicide and Insecticide Use, Cut Fertilizer 50%

To put the investments in motion, NRCS would use draw on federal, state and private conservationists to hire “thousands” of employees that would be available to rural America.

These employees would also work alongside climate researchers, which will also be funded in the budget.

Ag Research

In the past, many legislative officials have speculated American ag is falling behind in research compared with other countries. But research might finally see its needs met if this budget proposal passes.

“The People’s Republic of China has become the largest funder of agricultural research and development in the world, surpassing the U.S. and the EU” the report says. “The budget restores American innovation in agriculture by providing a total of more than $4 billion, a $299 million increase above the 2023 enacted level, for ag research, education and outreach.”

Some, including Rep. Salud Carbajal (D-Ca.), feel these research funds are long overdue.

“This administration is taking an important step toward undoing years of underinvestment – as public funding for agriculture research has declined by one-third since 2002,” Carbajal said in a press release.

A letter sent in February to the Office of Management and Budget by Carbajal and other members of Congress stressed the need for increases in ag research.

If these proposed investments are taken-up, Carbajal says American innovation in ag will be “restored.”

Taxes

Arguably the heaviest hitter in the budget bundle is rooted in tax changes that would make American’s pay “their fair share” toward the nation’s debt, according to Janet Yellen, U.S. treasury secretary.

To ensure the “share” is paid, the budget would:

• Raise the corporate tax rate from 21% to 28%. For most farmers this would be almost an 100% tax increase from 2017 when most farmers only paid 15%.

• Include several proposals to eliminate or reduce tax deductions and credits related to oil and natural gas operations.

Many farmers have ground that enjoys oil and gas revenues. This could indirectly reduce those revenues.

• Any farmer with a net worth greater than $100 million would be subject to a minimum tax rate of 25% on all income included unrealized gains not yet tax.

As an example, assume a farmer is worth $125 million and they have $25 million on unrealized gains not yet taxed. They would owe $5 million that can be paid over 9 years in the first year of this proposal or 5 years thereafter.

Plus, if the asset is illiquid, they could make an election to defer the tax until the asset is sold but would owe an “interest charge”. There appears to be no refund if your net worth decreases.

• Increase the Statute of Limitations from 3 years to 6 years for prohibited transactions and material misstatement of assets in a retirement plan.

• Treat all capital gains and dividend income for taxpayers with more than $1 million of taxable income as being taxed at ordinary rates.

As example, assume a farmer had $500,000 of capital gains and $1 million of other net taxable income. All of the capital gains would be taxed at 44.6%.

The administration wants to make farmers and their heirs pay capital gains taxes on any transfers of appreciated property either via gift or at death. They have increased the exemption amount to $5 million per person or $10 million for a married couple and allow portability of any unused amount at the first death.

Related article: Review of President Biden’s Green Book

So, what are the odds of this budget passing? It depends on who you talk to.

Upshot

According to Jim Wiesemeyer , ProFarmer policy analyst, democrats in the House and Senate aren’t sure they’ll produce their own budget documents, saying they’ll review Biden’s proposal and only draft their own resolutions if they need to take a different approach from the president.

Paul Neiffer , farm CPA, believes, with the House in Republican control, there is little chance that much of this will pass in

Farm Bureau Finds 2022 Weather Disasters Amounted to $21 Billion in Crop Losses

Tue, 07 Mar 2023 22:46:36 GMT

The 2022 crop year saw many extreme weather events, including hail, drought and derechos.

Farm Bureau estimates , based on USDA analysis, these events add up to 18 weather and climate disasters, each with damages exceeding $1 billion.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported 2022 surpassed 2021 as the third-costliest disaster year event in history, with an estimated $165 billion in total economic losses behind only 2017’s $346 billion and 2005’s $244 billion.

“With over 470 lives lost, these disasters will haunt impacted communities for years to come,” the Farm Bureau report said.

Hardest Hit

The major disasters in 2022 accumulated to $21.4 billion in crop and rangeland losses, with $11 billion covered by preexisting risk management programs.

Of the $21.4 billion, $20.4 billion was lost to drought and wildfire. The remaining $1.08 billion in lost crops was due to hurricanes, hail, flooding and severe weather.

Here’s a breakdown of the 2022 crop losses.

State-by-State

According to Farm Bureau’s findings, Texas suffered the most loss in 2022. The 28^th state took a $6.4 billion hit in 2022. The losses include:

• $2.9 billion in cotton damages
• $1.7 billion in forage and rangeland damages
• $1 billion in wheat damages

Severe weather in April and May caused part of Texas’ depleted number, but drought was ultimately the main driver.

Drought also heavily impacted Kansas, Nebraska and South Dakota.

Corn in Kansas took a $1.2 billion hit, while Nebraska suffered $200 million and South Dakota lost $800 million. Soybeans also saw $700 million in losses in Kansas but fared better in Nebraska at $400 million in losses.

Filling the Gaps

To mitigate crop losses, Congress offered various ad hoc disaster assistance programs, such as the Emergency Relief Program (ERP) .

ERP has been divided into two phases, with the first phase devoted to producers who had previously enrolled in risk management programs. Phase two opened on Jan. 23 and is available for all other producers.

As of February, $7.4 billion in payments had been dispersed through Phase 1 of ERP.

Agronomic Phenomenon in Corn Strikes Outer Rows of Fields, Strips Yield

Wed, 09 Nov 2022 21:28:47 GMT

Mother Nature routinely sends corn growers production challenges from weeds, insects and disease. Now, she has a trick up her sleeve agronomists are referring to as the “edge effect.” It took a significant yield bite out of some Iowa cornfields this season.

As the term implies, Iowa farmers with affected fields reported seeing significant yield differences between the outer rows of their cornfields and interior ones.

That was true for Rod Pierce, who says he has seen the phenomenon before but not as dramatically as he saw it this year.

“In one field, I had corn that yielded zero with the first pass of the combine,” says Pierce, who farms in Boone County.

In another field, he recorded 150 bushels of corn with the first pass of the combine in outer rows. By the third pass of the combine, the yield monitor was showing 220 bushels per acre – a 70-bushel difference between the affected and unaffected corn.

Pierce was one of several corn growers who told Meaghan Anderson, Iowa State University Extension (ISU) field agronomist, they were seeing the edge effect ding yields this season.

“It’s been remarkably bad, worse this year than I have seen it in the past,” Anderson says. “It’s often three 12-row passes into a field before you start to see significant recovery of yield.”

Equally distressing – Anderson and other agronomists are unsure what’s causing the phenomenon, which they have observed for the past several years to varying degrees.

While the issue seems to be concentrated in Iowa this season, Illinois farmers have also found the problem. Emerson Nafziger, professor emeritus at the University of Illinois, first reported on it in his 2013 article, Yield Loss on the Edge of Corn Fields.

The Blame Game

One of the usual suspects, herbicide drift from neighboring soybean crops, is routinely blamed for the problem of edge effect in corn. But research and field observation have been unable to confirm that drift is the culprit.

“I’ve seen the problem in cornfields next to soybeans but also next to some beautiful CRP acreage where no herbicide was sprayed,” Anderson says. “At this point, we’re still working through various theories.”

Work at Iowa State University suggests edge effect is likely caused by a combination of corn microclimate and adverse weather patterns, especially hot, dry, windy conditions, according to Mark Licht, Extension cropping systems specialist.

Under those conditions, Licht says air passing over and mixing into the corn canopy is initially dryer at a field’s edge, causing corn respiration rates in outer rows of fields to be higher. Over time, that can lead to elevated drought stress along field edges. Then, because of plant respiration, the air collects moisture as it passes further into the field which helps minimize or eliminate edge effect, and yield results become more normal.

Combination Of Factors At Play

Licht’s work in 2019 and again in 2020 suggests stress that occurs in July and August during pollination and grain fill contribute primarily to yield loss from the edge effect. (For more information, see Licht’s ICM Blog on Edge Effect FAQs .)

Pierce says Licht’s explanation for edge effect makes sense, based on in-season NDVI data and drone pictures he’s reviewed with his consulting agronomist, Adam Walters, Premier Crop Systems, Huxley, Iowa.

Walters notes that in one of Pierce’s affected cornfields bordered by soybeans, a small stand of trees appears to have provided some buffer to dry, hot winds that swept across the field in late July and August. Walters took aerial photos with a drone, which shows how green the corn crop was early season, northeast of the trees. The two men evaluated the area again this fall via a yield map.

“The yield map (see photo, above) shows a drastic line where the trees were and how that field yielded nearly zero bushels per acre to the east of that grove,” Walters says.

Pierce says he believe other factors, in addition to weather conditions, can compound edge effect. “A couple of years ago, some white gravel was put down on the road next to this field where we had the problem, and the dust from that gravel didn’t wash off the corn in those outer rows. I think that dust contributed to the problem, too,” he says.

Where To From Here?

The question now for many farmers is what agronomic practices to adopt for 2023. Anderson says there are at least two strategies farmers can consider – especially if they expect to be hit by hot, dry weather conditions again next season.

“One way to potentially manage this is to plant more stress-tolerant corn hybrids along field edges, particularly on the southern and western field edges where edge effect is typically the worst,” she says.

A second option is to consider reducing planting populations slightly in the outer rows of fields, which could reduce the competition between corn plants for water and nutrients.

Unfortunately, neither option is without some risk. “Of course, if we have a year without the edge effect, these strategies could reduce overall yield compared to our normal strategies,” Anderson says.

Monitor Fields Next Season

Regardless of what farmers who are experiencing edge effect opt to do next season, Anderson encourages them to investigate and discuss what they see in fields with their seedsman and agronomist and not rush to judgment on the cause.

“Edge effect doesn’t happen every year, so it’s this very challenging thing to even study, let alone try to scientifically research management strategies to use that are going to be effective to address it,” she says.

For his part, Pierce is still weighing his seed options and management decisions for 2023. “I’m researching it and talking to a lot of people,” he says. “I’m hoping this winter someone will come up with some ideas and show some data on something we can do proactively that would help, but right now I don’t have an answer for it.”

I-80 Harvest Tour: Indiana Corn and Soybean Yield Averages Look Below 2021

Ferrie: Do Fall Tillage if Fields are Dry, Consider No-Till Corn and Soybeans for 2023

Volunteer Corn in Soybeans Harbors Secret Pest Problem

How Your Management Can Impact Key Corn Yield Components

The Perfect Storm: Now’s the Time to Safeguard Your Soil

Mon, 16 May 2022 21:26:59 GMT

A dust storm rippled through the Midwest late last week, followed by rain in some parts and continued heat in others. The Great Plains is no stranger to this weather phenomenon, but producers up north are less familiar with it.

Images of the storm look eerily familiar to a notorious event that took place nearly a century ago—the Dust Bowl. However, meteorologists are categorizing the system as a derecho.

Pretty crazy storm front.... We were lucky compared to others... No damage SW Mn, @snodgrss @NWSSiouxFalls pic.twitter.com/BJM2xfEM99
— Matt Grussing (@GrussingMatt) May 13, 2022

The weather system that started in Nebraska made its way through Iowa and South Dakota, leaving behind extreme damage in some regions, with less in others.

A First for the Corn Belt

In Northeast Iowa, the storm plowed-in at 80 mph for roughly 15-minutes. Couple an abnormally dry spring with record-breaking winds at the start of planting season and you have a recipe for “the perfect storm,” according Rosie Roberts, Iowa Soybean Association conservation agronomist.

However, she says the wild weather event didn’t bog-down producers’ moral.

“Folks are eager to get out in the field and keep planting as much as they can,” she says. “The only bright side of the storm is we didn’t have a whole lot of rain to put people out of business for the week. Just this morning I saw a few people in the field, completing seedbed prep tillage.”

Following the dust and wind, Roberts says an inch of rain made its way to the soil—something her area desperately needed. She says this La Nina weather pattern kept her territory’s soil temperatures around 50-degrees until last week, while the drought monitor categorized her region’s moisture severity at 1 out of 10.

Lights Out in South Dakota

Nate Hanson from Dell Rapids, South Dakota, says there wasn’t any warning for the storm. Ten minutes after seeing the wall of dust from afar, the storm was at his doorstep.

“Two of our buildings are a complete loss with two others that have heavy damage, and we have probably 20 trees down,” he says. “I’m 44-years-old and I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Preventing Another Dust Bowl

This weather event highlights how safeguarding soil through cover crops should be a high-level priority in preventing wind and water erosion, according to Roberts.

“Given the erosive activities that we’ve had over the last month or two, this will definitely get people talking,” she says.

Cereal rye is the cover crop of choice in Roberts’ region. She says the biomass is what keeps it top of the charts.

“After the cereal rye is seeded, you’ll get a little bit of growth before the first frost comes and then it’s a winter hardy plant so it over winters. Once we start getting warmer spring temperatures, it starts to green up and actively grow, which helps keep a cover on the soil while nutrient cycling goes on the underside of the soil,” Roberts says.

Sioux county—Roberts’ territory—leads the state of Iowa in livestock production. Cereal rye has been a popular choice in the areas as it opens the door for livestock grazing. And, Roberts says a handful of her customers who don’t have livestock opt to terminate the crop or proceed with no-till planting beans into the cover crop biomass.

Silage fields also provide an opportunity.

“Chopped silage fields are great opportunities to seed cover crops in because you can get in early enough ahead of any frost date, and then you can harvest the biomass for the livestock. It helps keep your soil in place and safeguarded against erosion,” she says.

Roberts says having technical assistance in boots-on-the-ground is “vital” in making cover crops show up in your ROI. She suggests contacting a conservation agronomist or industry expert to get started.

“The assistance is out there,” she says. “You just have to look for it.”

More on cover crops:
> Cover Crop Decisions: Thorough Planning Increases The Odds For Success
> Do Cover Crops Pay? Evaluate Your ROI in These Two Ways
> USDA Unveils Pandemic Cover Crop Program for 2022

If You Think the Wind is Worse Than Normal This Year, Data Proves You're Right

Tue, 26 Apr 2022 19:04:40 GMT

Farmers and ranchers have had to endure high winds for months. The powerful gusts haven’t just been annoying; it’s caused disasters across the U.S. High winds have been the culprit of wildfires and more.

High winds and eerily dry conditions across Kansas and the Southern Plains have created what’s been a battleground for continuous wildfires this year. The drought-plagued area was already showing severe signs of what little to no rain-fed water will do, but fires are also robbing ranchers of vital grass.

Cooper and Chelsea Adams are the fifth generation of the Adams family to run cattle in the southwest corner of Kansas. What is typically a lush landscape for cattle ready to graze is now a backdrop covered in dirt and ashes.

“That fire was roaring so fast, 60- to 70-mile an hour gusts that day they said, it had already covered one entire pasture by the time I get down there,” says Cooper Adams.

The April fires are only a sample of wildfires that have continued to pop up across the Plains. High winds and dry conditions also resulted in multiple wildfires in western Kansas in December.

Bar S Ranch homes and personal belongings, along with around 200 head of cattle, other structures on the ranch and 40-miles worth of fence during the December fires. The family believes downed power lines from strong winds sparked a fire that changed their lives .

Stories like these can be found from Texas to North Dakota.

“Yes, it has been windier than normal this month across the nation’s mid-section,” says Brad Rippey, USDA meteorologist. “Wind data is a little harder to come by, compared to temperatures and precipitation. However, I have some numbers for Dallas-Ft. Worth (DFW), Texas. Through April 24, the average wind speed at DFW was 15.9 mph. Average for DFW in April is 12.2 mph. That works out to about 30% above the April average. April record for DFW was 17.2 mph in 1951. “

Those on the Plains are used to wind, but this year has been especially bad. 70 MPH winds may have wiped out the remaining winter wheat in the Texas Panhandle this month.

“The wheat crop that was out there was just living off of the little bit of moisture that was in the ground, and we haven’t had any moisture to help with that at all,” says Jesse Wieners farms in Groom, Texas. “Now we’re at that stage where the little bit of wheat that was there has blown out and is pretty much non- existent. We’ve been seeing zero-bushel yield across the farm on a lot of stuff. It just is not looking good right now.”

The aftermath of Tuesday’s winds were evident, with dirt drifts piled up in ditches. Farmers have battled multiple wind events already this year, along with intensifying drought. The situation has hammered the crop planted last fall, with the majority of the dryland winter wheat crop across the Panhandle and southern Plains already zeroed out by crop adjusters.

“Some of the blame for the high winds can be attributed to La Niña,” says Rippey. “With a La Niña-driven storm track over the last several weeks, several very strong storms have emerged from the western U.S. and crossed the northern or central Plains.”

Rippey says this satellite image of the weekend storm, dated April. He says those storms have generated considerable wind in the Southwest and throughout the Great Plains.

“In drought-affected areas, this has led to blowing dust, fast-spreading wildfires, and further deterioration of wheat and pasture conditions,” he adds.

Ferrie: Disease Pressure is Bringing Corn to its Knees

Wed, 08 Sep 2021 21:32:53 GMT

As Ken Ferrie travels through parts of central Illinois this week, he sees a corn crop that has changed radically in the past seven days.

“Disease pressure is bringing fields to their knees, and a lot of that corn here will die before it can finish the race for yield,” says Ferrie, Farm Journal Field Agronomist and owner of Crop-Tech Consulting, Heyworth, Ill.

Corn that typically would be filling kernels this time of year is, instead, prematurely shutting down due to a cocktail mix of heavy disease pressure coming at it from many fronts – gray leaf spot, northern leaf blight, common and southern rust, tar spot and, most recently, Goss’s bacterial wilt and leaf blight.

“That picture-perfect photo finish you like to see with the top of the plant still green and the husk turning ripe is getting harder and harder to find as you visit these fields,” he says.

D and L-1 hybrids are a concern. Ferrie says the late disease push is particularly hard on D hybrids. These are hybrids that have kernel depth changes, positive or negative, based on populations and environmental conditions during the last 30 days of grain fill.

Many of these fields – instead of packing on starch– are now hustling to get to black layer. Some of the corn will put in what Ferrie calls a gray layer.

“This corn will dry down very fast, so it’s like frost-damaged corn,” he explains. “It relies totally on the temperature and humidity of the growing day to change that moisture.”

With the protection from fungicide applications made earlier in the season waning, disease is likely to take a greater toll. The silver lining is that the pressure has developed late enough that many of the D hybrids will still produce average to even slightly above-average yields but not record-setting yields.

Another concern, Ferrie reports, is the impact he is seeing in fields of L-1 hybrids as a result of high winds that moved through parts of Illinois on June 19. Ferrie defines L-1 hybrids as those that flex length in the early season, cob and all, between V6 and tassel.

“The gooseneck plants, if they’re an L-1 hybrid, are producing 28-kernel to 30-kernel long ears, cob and all, even if they’re filled to the tip,” he says.

Make a harvest plan. With so much corn shutting down prematurely, Ferrie says he is concerned the corn harvest will land right on top of the soybean harvest.

“Pest teams, stay on top of each field, looking at stalk quality. Do the push test in every field—some aren’t passing the test now,” he says. “Have a field pecking order as you go to harvest, so you know which ones are coming out first and so on.

“Managers, pucker up and buy some dryer gas, because not all of this crop is going to stand and then dry down in the field,” Ferrie adds. “This is still a big crop, boys, so don’t let it go and turn into a November nightmare.”

Hear more of Ferrie’s recommendations in this week’s Boots In The Field podcast:

Ferrie: Severe Tar Spot is Shutting Down Corn, Encouraging Top Leaf Dieback

Ferrie: Southern Rust is in some Illinois Corn at R4 Stage, 30 Days from Finish Line

Ferrie: Consider Yield Maps as Highly Valued Game Tapes to Review

Drought Conditions Worsen in High Plains, West

Fri, 21 May 2021 19:01:35 GMT

Lots of red. That’s the prevailing color on the U.S. Drought Monitor, released Thursday, for parts of the High Plains, particularly North Dakota, and in states throughout the Southwest and West.

In the High Plains, two diverse weather patterns are in play, according to Monitor authors, Adam Hartman, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and Denise Gutzmer, National Drought Mitigation Center.

The U.S. Drought monitor released Thursday shows while there were slight improvements, dryness covers more than 40% of the U.S., which is historic.

“The drought monitor has been around for more than two decades, and we have only seen four springs where we’ve seen more than 40% drought coverage in the lower 48 states,” says Brad Rippey, USDA meteorologist and an author of the monitor. “For the record, those years were 2000, 2003, and then in the wake of the big 2012, drought with the spring of 2013.”

2021 is among those years, with nearly 60% of the U.S. seeing drought, with Rippey calling the Southwest and West “ground zero” for drought this year.

Precipitation this past week did help soil moisture conditions in Colorado, Kansas and Nebraska, reducing drought in some areas, according to the weekly Monitor. However, farmers saw rain extremes in some cases, with precipitation of 3” or more.

The Dakotas have increasingly dire conditions, however. Above-normal temperatures and below-normal precipitation this past week warranted a further downgrade in soil conditions in the Dakotas. Drought expanded in South Dakota, as the state continues to fall behind during what usually is a climatologically wetter time of year. There are also continued reports of poor water quality in livestock water sources in northwestern parts of the state.

In North Dakota, dry, windy conditions continued what’s been an ongoing pattern throughout spring and that is predicted to continue.

“Many farmers have been forced to plant in dry soils this year, but erosion and lack of rainfall have resulted in poor and/or a lack of germination,” writes the authors. “Fire also continues to remain a high risk across North Dakota, and most counties have imposed burn restrictions. Since the beginning of the year, there have been more than 1,000 fires reported across the state, with over 100,000 acres burned.”

Sixty percent of the U.S. cow herd is now in some level of drought or dryness, because pastures aren’t greening up for grazing. That’s forcing cows to the processor in numbers not seen in a decade, according to Greg Henderson, editor of Drovers.

“The (number for) March of this year was up 10% over last year already, and April was up 4% to 5% over last year,” says Henderson. 2020 beef cow slaughter was up 7%, which was the highest beef cow slaughter since 2010.

Water levels across the West are below normal for this time of year. Above-normal temperatures over much of the West over the past 60 days has resulted in rapid snowmelt and, due to dry topsoil, much of the melt water has not made it into the rivers, lakes, and reservoirs.

In California, the water level in Lake Tahoe is 2.5 feet lower than this time last year. There are increasing reports of reduced pasture forage, livestock requiring supplemental feed and/or being sold off, and some reports of livestock mortality. Additionally, stock ponds are running dry, and farmers have been forced to haul water in some locations.

Targeted degradations were also made in portions of Idaho as a result of deteriorating soil moisture conditions.

In the week ahead, look for the Southern and Central Plains, much of the Corn Belt, and northern tier states to remain wet. Temperatures are also forecast to remain below-normal for much of the period across the Northern tier.

“High pressure is expected to dominate over the eastern U.S., coinciding with little to no rainfall and above-normal temperatures,” the authors report.

The Southwest and Coastal California are also likely to remain dry. However, temperatures are favored to remain below-normal, moderating to near-normal as the week progresses toward Tuesday, May 25.

Below-normal precipitation is expected in the Southeast U.S. and along the East Coast, with enhanced probabilities in the deep South and Florida, the authors report. Below-normal precipitation is also expected for the Central Pacific Coast, Great Basin, and Eastern Rockies to the High Plains.

The weekly U.S. Drought Monitor report is available here: https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/

Reeling in Lost Bushels

Wed, 27 Jan 2021 20:11:26 GMT

Scott Flowers pulled off the highway and eased onto a winding county road, anxious to check his crops on an eerily quiet Friday morning. Truck wheels crunched gravel as he rolled alongside one field after another. Cotton; check. Soybeans; check. Peanuts; check. Corn? More than 200 acres of the best corn on his entire farm had vanished overnight.

Flattened by 6" of rain and 50 mph straight-line winds, remnants of Hurricane Harvey, the corn was unbroken but uprooted. Pressed by the time constraints of harvest and with yield on the ground, Flowers weighed his options and ordered a corn reel, intent on recovering bushels. However, the seasoned Mattson, Miss., producer knew he was about to walk a farming tightrope: Salvaging yield with a corn reel comes with a mix of variables.

The Hawkin corn reel features paddles positioned to create narrow clearance and help prevent corn from escaping over the outside dividers. The reel also handles flow evenly and keeps an operator in the cab. After 10 days in transit, four days of assembly and a missing part, Flowers was able to roll into the damaged corn field.

“With a reel, you come behind and go with the flow at 2 mph or 3 mph,” says Joe Small, of Omega Plantation in Clarksdale, Miss. “The reel clears the clutter off the header.”

Flowers estimates the corn reel quadrupled the normal combining time of standing corn. Along with time spent waiting to get the reel in the field, he was forced to hire outside cutters to harvest several soybean fields. “I had to pay to have 500 acres of soybeans cut, although I’d normally have more than enough combines. That’s the way things go sometimes at harvest when a crop is ready to go.”

How did Flowers fare when the bushels came out of the field? After using the corn reel, he still managed to match his farm average on the downed 200 acres: 215 bu. per acre. Essentially, he estimates a 50-bu. loss per acre from the hurricane effect.

“I don’t know if the reel paid for itself when I think about time lost and considering I paid to have some of my beans cut. The lost time and lost bushels were tough,” Flowers explains.

Relying on 50 years of combining experience, Small says loss from downed corn is dependent on rain, wind, variety, stalk breakage point, foliage and how the corn is positioned on the ground. “In my experience, when you run a corn reel through a damaged field, you expect to regain just below 50% to upward of 85% of yield,” he notes.

“I’d tell anyone with downed corn to know a loss is coming. Factor in all the conditions and estimate the overall loss, and then you can figure out if it’s time to bring in a corn reel,” Small advises. “You might not need the reel for 10 years, but you also might need it the very next season.”

“For us, the corn reel was an investment and a little bit of insurance,” Flowers says. “If we get in this situation again, we’ll hook up to the reel and be ready to go.”

Biofuels Update

Wed, 18 Nov 2020 05:12:03 GMT

and Margy Fischer , Farm Journal Machinery Editor

U.S. Leads Wind Power Growth
For the third year in a row, the U.S. was the fastest growing wind power market in the world, according to a new report by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).

The 2007 edition of DOE’s “Annual Report on U.S. Wind Power Installation, Cost, and Performance Trends” found that $9 billion was invested in 5,329 megawatts of new U.S. wind power capacity last year, causing the total U.S. wind power capacity to increase by 46%.

The report notes that wind power accounted for 35% of all new U.S. electric generating capacity in 2007 and can now supply about 1.2% of the country’s electricity needs. In addition, new transmission facilities under development throughout the country will allow the future development of another 200,000 megawatts of wind power.

Biodiesel Hurdle Cleared
After more than five years of extensive research, the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) has voted to approve biodiesel blend specifications that should significantly bolster automaker support and consumer demand for biodiesel.

One of the approvals is for a new specification for blends of 6% biodiesel (B6) to 20% biodiesel (B20) for on- and off-road diesel. Automakers and engine manufacturers have requested finished blend specifications for B20 biodiesel for several years, citing the need as the single greatest hurdle preventing full-scale acceptance of B20.

John Gaydash, General Motors director of marketing, fleet and commercial operations, says, “The new ASTM spec for B6 to B20 is a major building block in GM’s efforts to elevate biodiesel as part of our energy diversity strategy.”

Nearly all major engine manufacturers in the U.S. currently accept use of at least B5, while Caterpillar, Cummins, John Deere and New Holland already accept blends of B20 or higher. Several companies are expected to raise their approvals to B20 now that the final ASTM specifications are approved.

Green Collar Workforce
The biofuels industry is estimated to create 240,000 full-time jobs by 2015, and this has brought together a consortium to supply the industry with a specially trained workforce.

Iowa Biofuels Training International (IBTI) is a consortium working to train the future employees of biodiesel and ethanol plants. To do that, IBTI seeks to create industry-relevant coursework, as well as in-the-field training, for students interested in the field. Two community colleges in Iowa—Kirkwood Community College, Cedar Rapids, and Indian Hills Community College, Ottumwa/Centerville—have received grants from the Department of Labor to set the foundation for IBTI-certified institutions and coursework.

The colleges already offered biofuels training courses, such as ethanol shift maintenance and ethanol plant management, and IBTI is working to expand participating institutions, as well as courses offered.

Nebraskans Demand Biofuels
Pollsters were struck by rural Nebraskans’ strong support for renewable forms of energy—and how out of touch state policy is with that sentiment. In a recent University of Nebraska poll of rural Nebraskans, 91% agreed or strongly agreed that more should be done to develop ethanol, bio-diesel, wind and solar energy.

While 28 states have renewable portfolio standards that require electricity providers to obtain a percentage of their power from renewable resources by a certain date, and four others have goals in place, Nebraska has neither.

“Nebraska’s own Sen. George Norris, who championed the Rural Electrification Act more than 80 years ago, would roll over in his grave because we are not adapting,” says University of Nebraska ag economist Bruce Johnson.

Despite hunger for new energy sources, 57% agreed or strongly agreed that the environment should be protected even if it restricts energy supplies. Results are at http://cari.unl.edu/ruralpoll/ .

You can email Jeanne Bernick at jbernick@farmjournal.com and Margy Fischer at mfischer@farmjournal.com .

Farmers Sharing Poor Crop Conditions On Social Media

Sun, 15 Nov 2020 21:30:00 GMT

With portions of the U.S. experiencing severe, extreme and exceptional drought conditions, farmers are posting photos showcasing just how much of an impact the lack of rain is having on their fields. Scroll down to see photos farmers are sharing.

One of the states most effected by drought has been Missouri, with the entire state facing dry conditions. At least 31% of Missouri’s corn crop is in poor to very poor shape. Soybeans, unfortunately aren’t much better, leaving some farmers having to make tough decisions like baling their beans.

.@USDA says 31% of Missouri’s corn crop is in poor to very poor shape. This is corn pm sandy soil in the Missouri River bottoms just south of Hardin, Mo. Fields go from stressed, but still green to this. The impacts of this year’s drought are real... and disheartening. pic.twitter.com/HE9h6K8VAz
— Tyne Morgan (@Tyne_Ag) August 1, 2018

How bad is the #drought here in East Central, MO? They are round baleing soybeans in Pike County right now. 1/2 the hay crop going into winter, farmers are making tough decisions. pic.twitter.com/qGkT97f8Hr
— Kyle Allen (@channelseed7) August 5, 2018

Similar dry conditions in the corn belt are leaving states like Iowa and Kansas high and dry. Lack of moisture has caused lack of pollination, causing many farmers to expect lower yields this harvest season.

Corn is cooking today in SE Iowa and not in a good way. #drought #corn pic.twitter.com/HnJorSwPfi
— john Dingman (@jdingman2899) August 5, 2018

In other parts of the country, heavy rainfall and severe storms have left crops oversaturated, blown down and shredded due to hail.

Miserable night to finish off and miserable year in Northeast Missouri... pic.twitter.com/siepSmrOQp
— Clete Miller (@clete_miller) August 7, 2018

Unfortunately have now experienced hail at every #corn & #soybean growth stage. Eastern York & good portion of Seward County-Hard dough/early dent and R6 beans. @UNL_CropWatch @HailKnowUNL https://t.co/j7OX78OwZe pic.twitter.com/TuEDLZ3FS5
— Jennifer Rees (@jenreesources) August 7, 2018

Well it was pretty corn. #hail. pic.twitter.com/ZfydUMoiLq
— GGF (@GoldenGrainFarm) July 30, 2018

Other areas have received too much rain, causing fields to flood and less than ideal drying conditions.

Wife just sent this from brother in laws, on south side of Sharon Springs. pic.twitter.com/OUFi2UYT4J
— Matt Jaeger (@mjaeger6) July 27, 2018

Despite the harsh conditions Mother Nature has thrown at farmers this year, many remain hopeful that recent rainfall could help turn bleak harvest conditions around.

Well after over 2” of rain, most of which came last week, this @Indigoag corn has made a surprising turn around. Too soon to tell if it’ll actually fill an ear but it’s giving it a shot. pic.twitter.com/Egr5scFyiF
— Sean Harkness (@harkness_sean) August 8, 2018

#SECOsoybeans looking good after last weeks rains. pic.twitter.com/gTBAeoVANS
— Sean Harkness (@harkness_sean) August 8, 2018

This is the reason to be planting beans at the same time as corn. Same bean planted 2.5 weeks apart on same soil across road from each other. I would say early beans make a difference. pic.twitter.com/ljiSrHO7VJ
— Beard Implement AFS (@Beard_AFS) August 8, 2018