By Bob Streit
Columist, Farm News
My, how our weather fortunes have changed in the past ten days. After going since late July without a substantial rain over much of the upper Midwest, we were blessed with enough moisture to close the cracks in the ground and replenish some of the subsoil moisture...
Mid-Sept has arrived and much of the final yield and harvest pace will depend on the weather the next four weeks. We will get to analyze the growing season and all of the management steps and products used in our major crops. Once harvest starts and we begin to get...
The sun is setting twenty minutes earlier each week as we move later into the growing season. This year that will be worth keeping track of as about one third of the corn crop was planted in June. Whether or not that portion makes it to black layer before a freeze...
September came in like a lamb. How will it go out? A year ago the start of September was marked by very heavy rain that moved in on a Saturday where both the ISU and UNL football games were rained out. The heavy rains lasted thru early October and produced flooded...
The first two thirds of the year are past and we now move into September. While August is typically the month most important to both corn and bean yields, this year September might be just as important for corn yields in the fields where the plants are lagging several...
The better part of the summer and the growing season in the Midwest is over with. In many areas the struggles to get planted and nurse the crops are over with, but we are left with the aftermath. When traveling thru Iowa and surrounding states most of the cover crops...
August is half over with and the most important part of the cropping season is still in front of us. This is the maximum grain filling period which in the past few seasons has been mostly completed by now. With the three different maturities of corn crops running...
This growing season has been one of extreme paradoxes. Three months ago we were all hoping and praying that the rain would quit falling. Now as August has arrived and the crucial grain filling period is here, many of the growers in Iowa and surrounding states are...
August is here and after the longest and frustrating first half to the growing season we will have to see how the second act, that of grain fill turns out for our two major crops. Just as planting progressed, most growers have three different corn crops at three...
Another week in July passed and one more in the month of July. It is typically the time when corn goes thru its critical stage of pollination and soybeans continue their rapid early growth forming branches and pods while closing their thirty inch rows. It was very...