The scurs have made themselves scarce after failing to scrape up much for rainfall this past week. Will they be able to come out of hiding soon? Starting Wednesday, partly cloudy becoming mostly sunny. Highs of 80 – 85 and lows of 65 - 70. Thursday, mostly clear with a good chance of an evening shower or thunderstorm. Highs near 90 and lows around 70. Partly cloudy on Friday with a slightly better chance of showers. Highs 80 – 85 and lows 55 – 60. Saturday, partly cloudy with a slight chance of shower. Highs 75 – 80 and lows near 55. Mostly sunny and cooler on Sunday. Highs 70 – 75 and lows of 45 – 50. Monday, partly sunny with highs around 70 and lows of 50 – 55. Mostly cloudy on Tuesday with a good chance of rain showers. Highs near 70 with lows around 50. The normal high for September 5th is 76 and the normal low is 52. As of the 26th, the sun is rising after 6:30 a.m. and is setting before 8 p.m. The scurs will be celebrating Labor Day by napping while dreams of Minnesota State Fair pronto pups dance in their heads.
After being on the road with the Pro Farmer Midwest Crop Tour for a week it’s good to get back home and see what’s transpired with the local crops. Unfortunately, very little of it has been for the better. Our patented August “mini-drought” the past week coupled with a 90-degree day, followed by an 85-degree days with strong southerly winds put major stress on the crop. It hastened maturity as well. When I left, much of the corn was dented but not showing much of a milk line yet. Now in many fields the milk line is already halfway down. Silage harvest is underway and the promise of more heat this week will push corn maturity even more rapidly. A rain at this point will only help maintain the yield that is there; it won’t increase it. The soybeans on the other hand still have some upside potential, if it rains. Without it, the last pods set are likely to abort, leaving the intangibles of bean size and weight to influence final yield.
Yes, another Pro Farmer Midwest Crop Tour is in the books. This was my eighth tour of duty and all in all it went pretty smoothly. Oh sure there were a few bumps in the road like the thunderstorm that hit about the time we were heading across the IN/IL border near Kankakee. As luck would have it, my rain suit and overshoes were riding around with the people who were hauling our luggage from point A to point B. After waiting out the storm awhile, we quick ducked into Wally World, grabbed some boots and another rain suit then kept on truckin.’ The crop was about as advertised. The late, wet start in states like OH, IN, and IL was evident. Corn in OH was very green yet primarily because it had been put in the ground late. Much of it was still milk to dough stage so it had a long way to go. Luckily the protection afforded them by the Great Lakes helps keep the odds of a frost there to a minimum as we saw in 2009. Wet conditions following planting caused large amounts of nitrogen loss, particularly in IN and IL. Planted in wet conditions, shallow root systems, along with lack of rain then being exposed to extreme heat raised havoc with yield potential. Add in a corn crop in the Western Corn Belt that had been exposed to disease, lack of moisture in addition to excessive heat and a record corn crop it doth not make.
On the soybean side, a less-than-perfect crop although perhaps not quite as mortally wounded as the corn crop. The soybean pods we saw across most of the eastern Corn Belt were still pretty flat and soil moisture with the exception of parts of OH and parts of IL where the aforementioned thunderstorm travelled was lacking. Insect and disease pressure were at low levels so at least it had that going for it. The area of IA we travelled through had a nice looking bean crop with plenty of pods and were true R6 soybeans.
Arriving back home and with Mrs. Cheviot at the State Fair, it was time to get back to work on some of the projects that were left dangling. The lawn was a mishmash of weeds, crabgrass, barnyardgrass and dormant bluegrass and the trimming hadn’t been done. The ranch was approaching that abandoned farmstead look. The flowerbeds and garden looked like weed control plots and there were vegetables to be harvested. Along with that, the orioles are still here as are the migrating hummingbirds so their feeders needed filling and cleaning too. It would’ve been nice to sleep after a week of driving, meetings, a time change, getting up early and staying up late as well as having microphones, digital recorders and TV cameras in your face. However it’s just not that easy after being “on” all week to flick a switch and turn it off like that, at least not for me. Must be some of that Border Collie rubbing off on me, so I put my nervous energy to work. Mower blades were sharpened, the weed eater gassed up, and bags and buckets were prepared. Ruby and I were ready to rock.
The real Border Collie Ruby was again on sensory overload with all the lawnmower tire biting and hiding from the weed eater to be done. She heads to the barn whenever the chainsaw or weed eater come out of hibernation where she entertains herself by staring down the sheep. No doubt she had even more fun staying with our dog sitting friends at Beaver Lake while we were gone. Ruby made new friends with their neighbor’s golden retriever Josie. Took a little while I was told but before long, there were 2 dogs having a great time running and playing with each other. As it should be.
See you next week…real good then.