Only angst growing on area farms
Cold, wet spring has delayed most planting
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| Time is running out for farmers like Rudy Maierhofer of Seneca, who has several hundred acres of corn and soybeans to plant, but can’t get into the fields because of the prolonged wet spring and saturated soils. (Herald Photo by Jo Ann Hustis) |
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Rudy Maierhofer has never seen another planting season similar to this.
The longtime Seneca producer, who with his son, Paul, farms several hundred acres north of the village, has his two huge, multi-row planters greased and ready to roll, and bag after bag of corn and soybean seed waiting to go into the ground.
However, the rains that continue to fall on soil already saturated from many previous rains this spring, are pushing planting deadlines for both crops close to the edge.
“Years ago, when you planted only 40 acres, the delay wasn’t too bad,” he noted, hefting a bag of seed corn for which he paid a little more than $300.
Today’s average farmer has hundreds of thousands of dollars invested in equipment and seed, and must get a crop in the ground to pay for them.
“Yes, we’re worried here in Illinois,” said Phil McArdle, who has spent a lifetime trading corn and beans on the open market as McArdle Grain & Commodities. “Look at the figures.”
Here’s what the figures indicate - corn planting is 60 percent complete at this time in the state of Iowa. Also, Western Minnesota and the state of Nebraska are pretty well finished with corn planting.
However, as a whole, only about 32 percent of the corn crop is planted in the Corn Belt region. Under normal planting conditions, 50 percent of the crop would be in the ground.
“That’s not terribly far behind, although I think they’ve exaggerated a little. They go by how many dry days there are, but I don’t think there’s quite as much corn planted as they’re saying,” he said.
“In Illinois and Indiana, corn planting is like 5 percent done. Normally, we’d be two-thirds finished.”
McArdle has not spotted any corn planted in the Grundy County area to date.
“I spoke to a farmer Monday near Braceville, who said he was going into the field that afternoon and try to plant some corn. I’d heard another farmer near Reddick had planted some corn about a week ago,” he said.
The best yields are usually produced by corn crops that have been planted by now. Which means producers will probably lose corn yield for every day the crop is not planted, starting with May 5.
Also, producers like to raise corn better than soybeans - maybe because they’ve been at it longer.
Maybe too, because there’s a little more profit in corn than in beans 90 percent of the time.
Starting now, producers will probably cut back on their corn acres a bit and plant a few more bean acres than originally planned.
The critical point for soybean planting is not until the end of May. Soybeans planted the next couple of weeks will probably yield as well at harvest as if planted in April. The optimum time for corn planting has already passed, however.
Also tending to cut down on the amount of corn acres planted is the high price of anhydrous ammonia, herbicides, and seed corn, which alone runs more than $300 per bag for most varieties.
“So, we’re looking at huge expenses to plant corn. That, along with the late season in our area, I think we’ll plant less corn acres and more bean acres this year than planned,” McArdle said.
“By fall, I think we’re going to find a smaller supply of corn than we had thought, and maybe a better supply of beans.”
For the most part, area producers raise 50 percent corn and 50 percent soybeans. Most perceive an advantage to switching the crops each year, especially with planting corn in the field where beans were grown the previous year.
“With the newer varieties of corn, better equipment and better management practices, though, they found they weren’t getting any yield reduction on corn following corn,” McArdle said. “Producers in east-central Illinois went from a 50-50 crop rotation to two-thirds corn and one-third beans. “
He knows of no area producer who has planted soybeans in the same field two consecutive years.
“They don’t like to do that,” he said. “If planting season gets late, and the producer is forced - especially if he had beans two years in a row - he probably will plant corn right up to June 1 rather than do beans three years in a row.”
The federal crop insurance planting deadline is June 4 on both crops. Claim benefits on crops planted after that date are cut back 1 percent per day. Worse yet, federal crop insurance is not available on corn planted after June 15, nor after June 25 for beans.
The whole Corn Belt was late with planting last year. Areawide, however, about half the corn was planted in April before the rains moved in, and the rest toward the end of May when the fields dried out.
“They had great yields last year,” McArdle said.
“But, the producers said corn planted in April averaged 30 to 40 bushes per acre better in yield than that planted in late May. That’’s something else to look at.”
