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Area farmers hope for good results despite trying year
By Cindy Iutzi /Gate City Staff Writer
This has been a trying year for Iowa and Tri-State Area farmers - record rain fall, widespread flooding and fitful weather are beginning to look normal.
The irony is that 2008 started with great expectations: Inputs, the costs that go into farming, hit record highs, but prices for corn and soybeans shared the glory.
“When you go into a year like this one, you look at it and you think, ‘This is one of those years when you're going to have a good enough year to help yourself through the next 10 years,' to some extent,” Iowa Agriculture Secretary Bill Northey said.
However, Lee County Extension Director Bob Dodds has been operating with a more modest view of the likely end results of this year's crop.
“We've been shooting for an average year all along and we knew that from our tough start,” Dodds said. “(Delayed) planting dates are a big one, spots where the field flooded, poor stands and Sudden Death in soybeans all gave us an idea.”
Most Iowa farmers still have a good chance of finishing with a good year, but it seemed as though everything and everyone, led by Mother Nature, seemed to be conspire against farmers.
Northey said the final verdict has yet to be rendered for Iowa farmers. The weather has clearly wreaked havoc, particularly in northeastern and southern Iowa, he said, though the first frost has held off, giving farmers a needed reprieve.
“Of course, you thought, with the year we've had, that we'd get an early frost,” he said. “But so far that hasn't happened, and that's helping.”
In Lee County as in much of the Tri-State Area, heavy precipitation, flooding and cool planting conditions followed by dry conditions in August and a chilly September made for a less than ideal growing situation for all crops.
Dodds is optimistic that ground with a bit of slope “that could get the water off it” will have done well, but he is concerned about the flat, poorly drained fields that had a combination of flooding and rugged conditions for soybeans.
Just how well or poorly crops have yielded will soon be known.
“We're just barely getting started in soybean harvest,” he said. “Quite a few have reported 50 bushel fields, some 60 bushel in fields with slope. But the flat fields with sudden death are finding 35 bushel beans. Of course, I hear mostly about the better yields. Very few call and tell me their beans aren't very good.”
Although some Lee County fields were not planted because of wet conditions, not many were so dramatically affected. The Green Bay levee held and the bottoms will have a crop.
Others in the Tri-State Area were not so fortunate. Farmers in the Warsaw bottoms in Hancock County, Ill., were all but wiped out when the Mississippi River breached the levee in Meyer, Ill.
Several farmers in Clark County, Mo., also lost their crop to high water.
A few farmers in the area have started combining corn, especially those with 5,000 to 6,000 or more acres to harvest. Dodds believes corn being harvested now has 22 to 24 percent moisture. Some farmers are getting their dryers going and others are putting corn in bins and using air to dry their corn.
“With prices of propane as high as they are, as long as the corn is standing well, we think it's a good idea to leave it in the field,” Dodds said. “And with the market going down limit every day ...”
The ideal moisture for storing corn is 14 to 15 percent and soybeans are best kept at 11 to 13 percent moisture.
Many of the soybeans that were harvested recently have been at about 11 percent moisture.
Corn and bean prices have tumbled during the past three weeks, reflecting economic woes in the U.S. and around the globe.
Early this morning, soybeans were in the $8 per bushel range, and corn was between $3 and $4 per bushel, down from three weeks ago when beans fetched $11 to $12 per bushel and corn sold at $4 to $5 per bushel.
Northey said what he's seen this year has sharpened his focus as an agriculture secretary. There are only so many ways farmers can protect against a deluge, he said, but finding better flood protections would be one of his primary goals going forward.
“We've made great strides,” he said. “But we need to do more.”
On another front important to farmers, Northey said he has been pleased with the state's efforts to pursue renewable energy, including initiatives led by Gov. Chet Culver.
Last month, Northey spoke out publicly about his disappointment that his party had included a plank in the Republican platform calling for the end of the renewable fuel standard. Northey said any curtailment of the ethanol industry would have a drastic effect on Iowa and the rest of the Corn Belt.
“If we didn't have the market ethanol provided, we might be looking at some pretty bad times,” he said. “It would look a lot like the '80s. They were piling corn in the streets and we were producing more than we needed.”
Northey said he believes export markets have improved for farmers since the 1980s farm crisis, but they're no match for the demand from ethanol plants.
“It's such an important market,” Northey said. “It'd be pretty hard to find a market on the fly for a billion bushels of corn. I'm pretty sure an export market could not fill that.”
Associated Press Writer Henry Jackson contributed to this story.
The irony is that 2008 started with great expectations: Inputs, the costs that go into farming, hit record highs, but prices for corn and soybeans shared the glory.
“When you go into a year like this one, you look at it and you think, ‘This is one of those years when you're going to have a good enough year to help yourself through the next 10 years,' to some extent,” Iowa Agriculture Secretary Bill Northey said.
However, Lee County Extension Director Bob Dodds has been operating with a more modest view of the likely end results of this year's crop.
“We've been shooting for an average year all along and we knew that from our tough start,” Dodds said. “(Delayed) planting dates are a big one, spots where the field flooded, poor stands and Sudden Death in soybeans all gave us an idea.”
Most Iowa farmers still have a good chance of finishing with a good year, but it seemed as though everything and everyone, led by Mother Nature, seemed to be conspire against farmers.
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“Of course, you thought, with the year we've had, that we'd get an early frost,” he said. “But so far that hasn't happened, and that's helping.”
In Lee County as in much of the Tri-State Area, heavy precipitation, flooding and cool planting conditions followed by dry conditions in August and a chilly September made for a less than ideal growing situation for all crops.
Dodds is optimistic that ground with a bit of slope “that could get the water off it” will have done well, but he is concerned about the flat, poorly drained fields that had a combination of flooding and rugged conditions for soybeans.
Just how well or poorly crops have yielded will soon be known.
“We're just barely getting started in soybean harvest,” he said. “Quite a few have reported 50 bushel fields, some 60 bushel in fields with slope. But the flat fields with sudden death are finding 35 bushel beans. Of course, I hear mostly about the better yields. Very few call and tell me their beans aren't very good.”
Although some Lee County fields were not planted because of wet conditions, not many were so dramatically affected. The Green Bay levee held and the bottoms will have a crop.
Others in the Tri-State Area were not so fortunate. Farmers in the Warsaw bottoms in Hancock County, Ill., were all but wiped out when the Mississippi River breached the levee in Meyer, Ill.
Several farmers in Clark County, Mo., also lost their crop to high water.
A few farmers in the area have started combining corn, especially those with 5,000 to 6,000 or more acres to harvest. Dodds believes corn being harvested now has 22 to 24 percent moisture. Some farmers are getting their dryers going and others are putting corn in bins and using air to dry their corn.
“With prices of propane as high as they are, as long as the corn is standing well, we think it's a good idea to leave it in the field,” Dodds said. “And with the market going down limit every day ...”
The ideal moisture for storing corn is 14 to 15 percent and soybeans are best kept at 11 to 13 percent moisture.
Many of the soybeans that were harvested recently have been at about 11 percent moisture.
Corn and bean prices have tumbled during the past three weeks, reflecting economic woes in the U.S. and around the globe.
Early this morning, soybeans were in the $8 per bushel range, and corn was between $3 and $4 per bushel, down from three weeks ago when beans fetched $11 to $12 per bushel and corn sold at $4 to $5 per bushel.
Northey said what he's seen this year has sharpened his focus as an agriculture secretary. There are only so many ways farmers can protect against a deluge, he said, but finding better flood protections would be one of his primary goals going forward.
“We've made great strides,” he said. “But we need to do more.”
On another front important to farmers, Northey said he has been pleased with the state's efforts to pursue renewable energy, including initiatives led by Gov. Chet Culver.
Last month, Northey spoke out publicly about his disappointment that his party had included a plank in the Republican platform calling for the end of the renewable fuel standard. Northey said any curtailment of the ethanol industry would have a drastic effect on Iowa and the rest of the Corn Belt.
“If we didn't have the market ethanol provided, we might be looking at some pretty bad times,” he said. “It would look a lot like the '80s. They were piling corn in the streets and we were producing more than we needed.”
Northey said he believes export markets have improved for farmers since the 1980s farm crisis, but they're no match for the demand from ethanol plants.
“It's such an important market,” Northey said. “It'd be pretty hard to find a market on the fly for a billion bushels of corn. I'm pretty sure an export market could not fill that.”
Associated Press Writer Henry Jackson contributed to this story.
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