The Farmer's Daughter USA

Hi, I'm Amanda! My family farms corn and soybeans in Southwest Michigan. I'm also a practicing attorney.

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Plant19 in a Word: Wet

May 27, 2019

As I sit here writing this post there’s a steady rain falling outside. The windows are partially open. And I keep getting up to check whether the rain is getting inside. But I can’t bring myself to close them completely, because we’ve hardly been able to open them all spring.

When the sun does come out, it doesn’t last very long. The grass is barely dry before the distant sound of thunder starts. Sure, we’ve had a few sunny days. And I’ve managed to plant my garden between showers. But it just keeps raining.

If you follow any other farm bloggers from the Midwest, I’m sure you’ve seen the constant complaints about the weather. I know, farmers complain about the weather every year. But the rain this year has seriously messed up plant19.

And it’s more than just a lot of rainfall. It’s also the weather pattern. Honestly, I’m not even sure we’ve had a record amount of rain. But we never have enough sun and dry weather to dry out the fields. It’s three days of rain, one of sun. Or three days of sun and rain mixed. We can’t get in the fields with the equipment if it’s muddy. So we usually need a good day or two (or more in fields with heavier soil) without rain before we can try planting. Otherwise, the tractor and planter get stuck. (Yes, we’ve gotten stuck this spring.)

My brother’s field in late May. Don’t even try to drive through that…you won’t make it!

And we’re up against the clock. The drop-dead date for planting corn is June 5th. If we plant beyond that date, we won’t be eligible for crop insurance. Considering how the weather has been so far, I’m not sure whether that’s a great risk to take or not. Also, the later we plant, the later we have to harvest. We can get snow in October in Michigan. So maybe we don’t even get the crop harvested.

The forecast for the rest of the week calls for rain. Every. Single. Day.

Honestly, I don’t see how we get it done. And that’s going to be true for a lot of farmers this year. I’m worried about how it turns out. We still have to pay the mortgage or rent, taxes, insurance, equipment loans, input costs and all the rest. Those burdens on top of an already-bad economy…. that’s rough.

Plant19. Wet.

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Filed Under: Family Farms, Production Methods Tagged With: family farmers, family farms, farm families, plant19

Comments

  1. Craig Williams says

    May 29, 2019 at 1:22 pm

    36M of 93M acres of corn were not planted as of Monday. Mainly IL, IN, OH, MI, SD. Surprisingly, IA and NE are doing OK, but farmers there don’t believe that’s the case. Beans are still an option, but the more acres going to soybeans, the worse that market gets. I’m thinking somewhere above 10M acres of corn will not get planted this year. That’s bad news for farmers who did not get planted, but possibly good news for those who did.

  2. Paul Essington says

    June 2, 2019 at 10:17 am

    You can receive insurance payments for planting after June 5. They will be reduced for each day after June 5.

    • Amanda says

      June 2, 2019 at 10:56 am

      Sure. The post wasn’t really meant to explain crop-insurance coverages. ๐Ÿ™‚ But even with that provision, a lot of farmers are going to have to make some hard decisions.

Hi, I'm Amanda. My family farms corn and soybeans in Southwest Michigan. I'm an attorney and I'm passionate about agriculture!

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thefarmersdaughterusa

Amanda | The Farmer's Daughter USA
I'm a proud farmer's daughter & advocate for modern agriculture. U.S. farmers are leaders in sustainability.

Amanda Zaluckyj
Just a reminder. #agriculture #usagriculture #far Just a reminder.

#agriculture #usagriculture #farmers #usfarmers #farming #farmfamilies #sustainableag #sustainableagriculture #sustainable #sustainability #farmerscare #homegrown #localagriculture #knowyourfarmer #shoplocal #madeintheusa #madeintheus #americanagriculture
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It's true. My puppy. ๐Ÿ’œ๐Ÿ’œ It's true. My puppy. ๐Ÿ’œ๐Ÿ’œ
The first 25 acres of soybeans are done! But the b The first 25 acres of soybeans are done! But the beans still have very high moisture content. It's so high the granary won't accept them. So we'll have to dry them.

The big concern with soybeans is that the pods won't pop open. If that happens, they'll be discarded  out the back of the combine with the other plant material. Obviously not what we want to happen. After testing a bit, enough were opening that we felt like we should just get started.

Slow going, but at least it's going!

 #farming #sustainableag #agriculture #sustainableagriculture #farmers #sustainableagriculturepractices #sustainable #agriculturelife #agricultureeducation #farm #farmer #fearfree #cleanfood #foodsafety #dietfads #FactsNotFear #cleaneatingdiet #foodlabels #truth #cleaneating #Harvest2023
We're still not harvesting yet. Why not? Moisture We're still not harvesting yet. Why not? Moisture content.

We're currently about 4 weeks behind. But we can't start because our crops are still too wet. The moisture content is the amount of water in each kernel or soybean. If there's too much, they can spoil in storage. If it's really too high, then combine has a hard time handling it.

For corn, the sweet spot is about 15%. We have a dryer system on the farm that can help finish the kernels to the correct moisture level. But the dryer takes a lot of energy to run, so its cost prohibitive if the moisture content is too high. And if we try to sell the crop when it's too wet, we'll take a price hit at the grain elevator. So either the granary dries it, we dry it, or Mother Nature dries it. Right now, it's still too wet for after-harvest drying.

The other complication is that IT. JUST. KEEPS. RAINING. That doesn't help because the corn doesn't have a chance to dry out, and it maintains that moisture. We need some warm, dry days to speed up the process.

So, for now, we're still waiting...

#harvest23
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