From the Fields: Holding on to hope

This week has been so busy my head is still spinning. We got done planting corn — the first time — on Monday and then worked on getting the rest of the first-crop soybeans planted. Tuesday afternoon, we got the first cutting of alfalfa hay down, we then round baled it on Wednesday morning and finished up later that evening getting it wrapped and lined up ready for wintertime. It was excellent quality, but we had some amazing hay weather and it almost got too dry on us to wrap. Luckily, we got it done just in time.

Our beans are finished now, and the early planted ones look really good considering all they have been through already this growing season. Our corn isn’t as well off as we hoped it would be by this time. We have around 250 acres that look really good, and we got that sidedressed with 28% on Monday. The corn we planted in mid-May didn’t favor the weather we experienced and resulted in us disking 250 acres under and just starting over. We had everything from big, wet holes with nothing in them to the most uneven-emerging corn I’ve ever seen. Some was just spiking and others in the same row had four and five leaves already. We hated to do it this late in the game, but the analogy we came up with is, “it’s like trying to fight with one arm tied behind your back.”

I don’t know if that’s even a saying or not, but that’s what we felt like this corn’s chance was for success the rest of the season if we had left it alone. We will see how the third hitch of planting and now this replant corn does for being planted in June. We had over 200-bushel averages on June planted corn last year, so we haven’t given up hope or thrown in the towel on this stuff yet.

We also have been swamped with return corn seed, replant corn, replant beans and exchanging corn for beans. It’s frustrating when you see it on your own farm, but even more frustrating when you have so many customers coming to you with the same problems you have and there just isn’t anything you can say or do to make it any easier. We had a huge amount of returned corn seed last season, and I never dreamed we would be doing the same again just a year later.

We try and tell everyone to stay positive and don’t give up on your crops yet. The growing season is far, far from over, and Mother Nature can surprise us. The genetics and potential that seed has today is unreal. It’s just paying attention to all the details and maybe a little good luck that can really take a crop from average to tremendous, even in trying years. We will get through this one – it just might not be pretty like we farmers strive for our in our fields.

Hope everyone is staying safe and finishing up fieldwork before the deadlines for crop insurance all pass. Good luck to all my fellow farm families.

Hope, Ind.