View from the Cab: Waiting and Waiting

I suppose a little moisture is good for the ground, although I hope these rain delays don’t continue through the rest of harvest.

As I write this, we are waiting for fields to dry out after a couple of cold and rainy days here in Central Illinois. The high last Tuesday only reached 41 and the overnight low dipped to the mid-30s. A fellow farmer remained optimistic and told me it is good to recharge the soil for next spring. I need to recharge my confidence as well because I am not so sure everyone will get wrapped-up by Thanksgiving at this rate.

It seems especially late this year since several growers are already done with everything – that makes it all the worse. The race to the finish line has been slowed a bit for some of us, but we’ll get done. We always do. Then, it is on to the post-season fieldwork as long as the weather cooperates from here on out.

This sort of takes me back to the wet fall of 2009 when we looked for any available weather window to cut soybeans. We all know that window really shortens when November rolls around since we are limited on daylight and dryness. November wasn’t horrible to us that year as we were able to get most of the beans out. I do recall cutting one field in early December when the ground was frozen solid, however. We were actually thankful for solid ground after a month and a half of making ruts in the field.

We are still hearing reports of awesome soybeans out there in those fields this season. Yields continue to impress – ranging anywhere from the 60s to 80s depending on who you talk to and where they are located. Many are still calling corn yields a “pleasant surprise”, although there were some dry pockets in Central Illinois which prevented corn from reaching 200 bushels. Variability was the key weather word this year.

During the upcoming winter meeting season, I am sure some of the topics will include weed management, creating higher yields, marketing advice and the upcoming farm bill in Washington, D.C. I also enjoy hearing the weather outlooks at these meetings to find out what kind of weather patterns we can expect the following year.

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