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Without much fanfare the calendar flipped to December. We were lucky enough to continue receiving days with temps in the 40s and a few 50s, which permitted outside tasks to get done. Here in central Iowa the top few inches of soil have frozen enough that a person...
We are slowly slipping into the winter season. Luckily the first ten days of abnormally cold days of two weeks ago have been canceled by two weeks of abnormally warm shirt sleeve conditions which have given us a chance to get outside chores and tasks completed before...
By late 2023 after we have had the fourth consecutive year in a row with very dry conditions where no one could predict how the season and crop size would turn out. At least Iowa, Nebraska and South Dakota avoid any sizeable Derechos. Now with large weather changes...
October, with its harvest moons, is upon us. It will be the month when our two major crops will be harvested and put into storage until each farmer finds a home for it, be it for feed on a local level, moved to an ethanol plant within easy driving distance, railed to...
Mid-September has arrived. Most sections in the Midwest had the majority of crop acres whimper to the finish line. Most areas within the cornbelt no significant rain to help the soybean crop finish enlarging the bean size. We can say that it was another season had no...
September has arrived and with it the days are getting shorter, the fall harvest season is getting closer and the birds that congregate for their journey to their southern homes have taken off already. I would normally say that the days are cooling off, but not yet....
The days are becoming noticeably shorter and the crops are advancing in what has become a topsy turvy growing season. Everything seemed out-of-whack from the end of winter and the start of the planting season, to what we have in the field now. This was following the...
What a summer and what a growing season. Does anyone know what to expect next? Actually, keen observers recognize that up until now it has been mostly a cookie cutter repeat of the last three seasons. Unseasonable warm in early to mid-April, then it dropped into the...
The summer and season is continuing at a very rapid pace. In most cases the corn crop in most places reached knee high or taller by July 3rd. In fact, there were tassels poking up in a number of commercial fields with silks soon to emerge. In my gardens the mid-April...
Don’t look now but we are approaching the longest day of the, June 21st. This is when soybean plants are normally triggered to start flowering if they have reached the V5 growth stage. At this point a sizeable percentage of the bean plants are behind that schedule due...