Timely rain as crops emerge

EMINGTON, Ill.— Swartz Farms is transitioning into summer mode after a timely planting season.

“This week, we are cleaning out bins, fulfilling our contracts on grain. We’ve been spraying. We finished up spraying corn and got started spraying soybeans. We’ve been mowing roadsides,” Craig Swartz said.

“Other than that, we’re getting kind of shifted towards our summer schedule here. We’ve got some waterways we’re going to reshape, some shed pads to build, and, other than just trucking, that’s about it.”

There’s also some wheat to harvest.

“The wheat looks fantastic. It did have a little damage from the hail event that we had, but we don’t think it’s a lot to really worry about,” Swartz said.

“We’re kind of getting towards the summer schedule. My kids’ baseball’s about wrapped up for the summer, and we start shifting towards football. It goes fast.”

Moisture

Swartz wrapped up planting corn and soybeans in record fashion on April 29. His fields have received some timely rain since then, but said he’s very fortunate compared to what other farmers are dealing with.

“We’ve had a great spring so far. I’ve had some timely rains. We haven’t had any flooding rains in our neck of the woods. I’ve got some friends down in southern Illinois that they just seem like they can’t catch a break,” he said.

“While we were pretty dry to start, we’ve caught some good rains now and things look fantastic. That rain the other night, we got about an inch and a half, and it came down just so nice.

“The soil moisture up here’s been pretty short, and in fact, I saw the other day, we’re still on the drought monitor up here in northern Illinois, and part of central.

“We’ve had about two and a half inches of rain in the last week and a half or something like that, and it has not been hard rains at all. It’s been nice and easy here. We did have a rain event where we had some large hail three or four weeks ago.”