Illinois | Field 2 Field

August 10, 2022August 11, 2022

Rain Finally Shows In Farm Country Last Weekend

Rain. Finally. Last weekend saw at least some rain in parts of farm country. Had a chance to talk with John Baranick (rhymes with mechanic), ag meteorologist for DTN, who lives just down 169 from me in Jordan, Minnesota. He says while the rain benefitted the parts of rural America stuck in a drought, other areas didn’t need a lot of rainfall.

“It wasn’t just here in southern Minnesota. We also saw that it was even heavier south of the border in Iowa, with a lot more four-to-six inch amounts there. Very helpful for some areas, but not a lot of those areas needed it. It also extended down through southern Wisconsin and into Northern Illinois. A lot of those crops, again, didn’t really need it, but it’s definitely helpful wherever it hit. And that front is starting to come through the eastern half of the Corn Belt. Again, a lot of these areas are doing much better than we are out here in the West, but Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio are all seeing bouts of rain this week. They’ve had some flooding in some of these areas, but the rainfall that’s gone through is mostly favorable. It’s just those Western states that just haven’t.”

The Dakotas saw mixed results from the weekend rain.

“South Dakota got some pretty good rainfall. The eastern half of it did, but the western half didn’t, really. North Dakota has kind of been missing out on a bunch of rain lately, although their soil moisture, for the most part, and the crop conditions are still pretty good.”

The Plains States are still struggling with drought…tape

“It’s the states of Nebraska, Kansas, kind of northern Missouri that have missed out on a lot of the rainfall even with these fronts coming through, and they’ve had a lot hotter. Temperatures have been up near or eclipsing 100 degrees very consistently all summer long, so the heat has been putting on a whole lot of stress for those areas.”

There may finally be some cooler air on the way into the Plains next week and may bring at least a little rain with that front…tape

“We’re seeing late next week, maybe mid-to-late next week, a push a cooler air move through and that’s gonna come with a bit of showers too, so it’s not a whole lot of rainfall and probably on the order for most people have a half inch or less, But the temperatures are going to cool back down. Instead of seeing highs in the 90s and up near 100. It’s more like the 70s and 80s for several days, so it’s actually gonna be below-normal temperatures for a bit. That kind of occurs late next week into the following week, so it’ll be a nice relieving break for them.

Unfortunately, many parts of rural America are still stuck in a drought. We’ll talk about that more later this week.

Again, that’s DTN ag meteorologist John Baranick

February 23, 2022February 23, 2022

Spring: when does it get here?

Spring weather is always a fun conversation across farm country, whether in the local coffee shop, after church, or during a sidewalk stroll down any small-town street in America. I came across a recent article from the National Weather Service saying that March might have above-normal temperatures and was intrigued. So, I got on the phone for an assignment from the National Association of Farm Broadcasting and began digging.

My first phone call was to Dennis Todey, the director of the Midwest Climate Hub in Ames, Iowa. As far as the March forecast goes, the veteran meteorologist says it depends on one thing: location, location, and location.

“The farther north you go, the less chance you have of being above normal during March,” Todey said. “But we should begin to rebound fairly quickly after the recent cold stretch that brought snow into parts of the Upper Midwest.”

Spring weather — Dennis Todey is the director of the Midwest Climate Hub in Ames, Iowa. (photo from climatehubs.usda.gov)

What you may not know is most of the cold that covered parts of the Upper Midwest was originally supposed to stay well to the north, especially up in Canada. Some of that cold worked its way into the North Central U.S., but it’s been limited mainly to the areas with snow cover.

As you go further west in the Northern Plains, there is less snow cover, so the temps haven’t been quite as cold. “The probabilities are not big, but the possibility of some warmer temperatures is there,” Todey said.

Looking out beyond March to the spring weather forecast, again, it all depends on which location you’re referring to. Out in the Eastern Corn Belt from Central Illinois and further east, they’ve had several storm events move through the area. The outlook in that location continues to look wet there.

“Planting delays are definitely on the radar in that location,” Todey said.

It’s the opposite in the Central and Southern Plains, where drought conditions have steadily grown worse in recent months as it’s been a dry and warm winter. The big question is whether the area is going to get any moisture anytime soon.

“It’s going to be interesting in the eastern Dakotas and parts of Minnesota,” he said. “They got some moisture late last year and recently picked up some recent snow as well.

“Places like Missouri and Iowa are more of a mixed bag right now,” he said. “Iowa still has some carryover dry soils, and then we have some dry soils in parts of Wisconsin in areas that keep missing out on moisture events.”

Speaking of dry weather, a good-sized part of rural America is short of moisture. The shortage in the plains begins in Nebraska and stretches to the south. It’s dry to very dry, but the lack of moisture doesn’t stop there.

“Parts of Iowa and Wisconsin are quite dry,” Todey said. “It’s quite dry in northern Illinois, which is a carryover from last year. Depending on which part you’re talking about, parts of the Dakotas had moisture while others didn’t get enough moisture for runoff for ponds and dugouts from a livestock standpoint.”

The winter wheat crop is really struggling because of the dry weather. The spring weather forecast hopefully has some moisture in it to help the wheat crop to at least somewhat rebound from the poor conditions.

As winter begins to wind down and spring gets closer, Todey has noticed an interesting trend in recent years when it comes to winter weather. Up here in Minnesota, we were able to take the dog for a walk in short sleeves or light jackets into November of 2021, which is almost becoming more of the norm rather than the exception.

“Winter has been showing up later than normal in recent years,” he said after some thought on the matter. “Let me frame this climatologically for you.

“The 90 coldest days on average for most of the Upper Midwest are typically December, January, and February,” Todey said. “That’s based on looking at data over the last 30 years. We’ve seen some of the coldest events of the winter occurring in late February.”

While late-winter snow isn’t uncommon, the larger events have been coming later and later, so “something is going on that’s a little different.”

October 11, 2021October 11, 2021

Harvest 2021 deep dive shows variability

Harvest 2021 is proceeding along at a good pace. Mike Zuzolo is the Founder and President of Global Commodity Analytics in Atchison, Kansas. He took a deep dive last week into the crop progress numbers and found a lot of variability in the results.

“Comparing the pace of the corn harvest 2021 versus the pace of the soybean harvest suggests that the corn yields are indeed a little more variable than beans,” Zuzolo said. “I hate to say lowered because of the issues that we’re seeing with the yields coming in. We’re seeing very good, very top-end yields coming in down in Kansas and Nebraska.

“My business clients and subscribers say strong yields are coming in through certain parts of Illinois,” he added. “However, my question is whether they’re top-end yields. Probably 90 percent of the producers I work with throughout Nebraska and Kansas would say ‘yes,’ we have top-end corn yields, and we’re close to wrapping up. However, central Illinois and central Indiana are probably around 50 percent complete, by comparison.”

Illinois and Indiana farmers are probably close to 75 percent done with soybean harvest 2021, but recent rainfall has slowed them down a bit. His clients in both states are saying they have top0-end yields in just 25 percent of their corn, but everything else is above average.

He thinks the numbers are showing the corn yields are more variable, especially because our corn and soybeans both have low moisture content. Six of the top 18 corn-producing states are at 50 percent or greater on corn harvest. About 29 percent of the national harvest 2021 is done compared to 24 percent at the same time last year.

“Those kinds of numbers are completely upside down when it comes to the soybean harvest,” Zuzolo said. “Just two of the 18 major soybean-producing states are at 50 percent or greater on harvest pace. The national soybean harvest is at 35 percent compared to 34 percent at the same time in 2020.”

Here’s the rest of the conversation.

March 13, 2021March 13, 2021

Gardening and getting ready in 2021

Gardening is something you might be getting excited about after a recent spurt of warm weather in March. If looking through seed catalogs and running your hands through the black dirt gets your heart pumping, you’ve been bitten by the gardening bug. However, I talked to a gardening expert who says don’t jump the gun on planting your garden because it could lead to problems.

Nancy Kreith is an Extension Educator specializing in horticulture at the University of Illinois. She understands the excitement to get that garden growing but wants you to check your calendar first, specifically relating to the weather forecast and the final expected frost date. Most gardeners in the north are likely a couple of weeks away from working in the dirt.

“We could have as much as three weeks to go yet, depending on where you’re at,” Kreith said in a phone interview from her office in Matteson, Illinois. “You’ll want to find your local frost-free date, either through the National Weather Service or your local weather forecaster. That’s the last day they’re predicting frost.

“For example, the local frost-free date here in the Chicago area is on Mother’s Day, May 15,” she added. “For our cool-season crop varieties such as lettuce and root crops, you can plant those anywhere from four-to-six weeks before the frost-free date. We might be starting to plant in my area during the first week of April.”

The crops built to handle the cold weather include broccoli, brussels sprouts, cabbage, kale, kohlrabi, leek, onions, peas, rutabagas, spinach, and turnips. Those are the hardiest crops you can plant in a garden, so as soon as a gardener can get out and work the soil, they can go in the ground.

What makes these hardy plants so tough is good genetics. She’s seen ornamental kale planted in gardens during the fall for decoration, and the kale held up with snow sitting on top of it. The plant won’t be actively growing in that case, but rather it tolerates the cold and will sit in the garden until the weather perks up and the kale grows again.

What about the garden crops that don’t like frost?

“The best advice I can give you when planting the less-hardy crops in your garden is to give yourself a little wiggle room,” Kreith says. “I mentioned that the frost-free date in my area is May 15, but you never really know with the weather, so a little extra time doesn’t hurt.”

Kreith says she tries to wait an extra week past that last frost date when planting the warmer weather garden crops like tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers. Those kinds of garden crops are very tender and won’t tolerate any frost. Plus, waiting a week or two after that date will still leave you enough time in the growing season to get a good crop from your garden.

In between the hardy and the tender crops is what she calls the “half-hardy” garden crops. That includes a lot of root crops like beets, carrots, potatoes, cauliflower, Chinese cabbage, lettuce, mustard greens, parsnip, Swiss Chard, and radishes.

“Those plants can go in the ground two or three weeks before that frost-free date,” she says.

Soil temperature is one of the most important factors in deciding when to plant your garden. (Photo from gardeningknowhow.com)

Gardening crops are like traditional commodities because you need to consider soil temperatures in deciding to plant your produce. “For example, the half-hardy vegetables will want soil temperatures above 40 degrees Fahrenheit,” she says. “Get an inexpensive soil thermometer, stick it in the ground, and document the soil temps for around five days in a row.

“That will give you an idea of how the seeds will germinate,” Kreith added.

While it’s still too early to plant, it’s more than all right to get out and do some work on the garden soil. General cleanup of the garden area after winter is a good place to begin.

“Go ahead and remove any debris from your vegetable garden,” Kreith said. “If you’re starting new, you want to kill off any existing vegetation where the garden is going to go. If grass and weeds are growing, I use a method that doesn’t require any chemicals to remove them.

“I use cardboard from shipping boxes,” she adds. “I remove the tape, but you don’t have to remove the label. Once I’m out gardening, I lay the cardboard down as a weed barrier, get it wet, and then put compost on top of the cardboard. I then allow it to decompose for one to two months.”

If she runs into areas of the garden that are hard to dig, Kreith cuts through the cardboard with a knife and then plants into that spot.

It’s important to remember that cardboard is rich in carbon, so she recommends adding some nitrogen to balance that out in the soil. While the compost will add a little to the soil, it’s important to put down some nitrogen fertilizer. “As the cardboard breaks down, it robs some nitrogen from the soil,” Kreith said.

“If all the weeds and plant debris are removed from your garden bed, go ahead and spread about two inches of compost on it,” Kreith says. “That’s something I recommend you do every year in your garden to get it ready to go.”

May 7, 2020May 7, 2020

Frost in the Friday night forecast in farm country

Here is the audio podcast with Ryan Martin that you can download to your computer. You can also play it on your mobile device. Just his the play arrow on the left.

Frost in the forecast is rarely a good thing in farm country during any season outside of winter. In an ideal world, the only exception is a killing frost after corn states hit black layer. Of course, we don’t always live in an ideal world, do we? Ryan Martin of Warsaw, Indiana, is a long-time agricultural meteorologist who says the threat of some frost damage will begin this weekend.

“The days most in question are Friday night, May 8, into Saturday morning,” he said. “The axis of the coldest air will come across eastern Minnesota, Wisconsin, east-to-northeast Iowa, northern Illinois, most of Indiana, as well as all of Michigan and Ohio. This is the zone where we’ll see temperatures at 30 degrees or colder.”

He said the coldest air looks to hit Michigan and Ohio this weekend, where we could see some big impact on soft red winter wheat, especially in Ohio. The frost timing is not good as wheat has woken up out of winter dormancy and is moving forward through its growth stages.

“The wheat is at the jointing stage and anytime the crop gets further into its growth, that means the wheat is a little more susceptible to cold temperatures,” Martin said, “depending on how much the temps fall and how long they’re under a certain threshold.

“If wheat is just breaking dormancy and you get a cold snap, you have to be under 28 degrees anywhere between three and five hours,” he added. “When we get into the jointing stage and further along, wheat can barely handle 30 degrees for an hour or two. That’s where the issue lies on wheat this weekend.”

Frost — Ryan Martin, Hoosier Ag Today meteorologist, says the fast pace of planting in 2020 is
going to slow down for a few days due to cooler than normal temps in farm country. (Photo
YouTube.com)

Corn and soybeans will hopefully be a different story. Based on the crop planting progress and emergence reports, Martin, Chief Meteorologist for the Hoosier Ag Today Radio Network, is much more optimistic about those crops being able to survive the freezing temps.

“Illinois leads the way with nine percent of its corn crop emerged,” he said. “In most areas, the growing point of the crop is still going to be below ground, so I don’t think it will mean anything for corn and soybeans on mortality. What it does do is slow down that incredibly fast-paced planting season we’ve seen in many states.”

A couple of other examples include Iowa, which was on a record planting pace during the last planting update, while Minnesota just to the north is no slouch either on planting progress. The Purdue University meteorology graduate says all of the “good stuff” that comes with early-planted corn gets slowed down and “stunted” because of the frost/freeze over the weekend and the extended run of below-normal temps that won’t end till the middle of next week.

“Cold air moved out of Canada and focused on the Great Lakes, Upper Midwest, and the northeastern United States,” Martin said. “However, there’s an interesting twist ahead in the forecast for the next seven-to-ten days. We’ll start to see temperatures in the below-normal areas start to moderate on May 13 through 15.

“Things will take a drastic switch after that,” he added. “We’ll see above-normal temps in the Eastern Corn Belt, while the Plains may drop down below normal through the last part of May. There’s a lot of air currents, different movements here, different patterns trying to emerge, and it all has to do with where polar air is shifting to this time of year.”

It’s been a bit of an unusual spring so far for many reasons, but I’m just talking about the weather. What we’ve seen so far in terms of temps and precipitation has been very different from recent years. There’s no question, a lot of states have seen temperatures consistently lower than what they normally expect.

“Big swings in spring temps aren’t unusual,” says Martin. “We’ve certainly seen them before. I think the reason it’s coming home to roost a little bit more and has people scratching their heads is the degree of change from the last several years.

“We’ve had pretty dog-gone decent springs over the past handful of years,” he recalled. “We’ve come out of winter early and been able to hit the ground running based on the temps. Last year, precipitation was a big problem, but the temperatures were still decent. This year is the first out of the past five or so that’s really showed us the kind of variability we can see in the spring.”

Ryan will do custom forecasts for your radio and TV stations. Check out his work at www.weatherstud.com.

January 4, 2020January 4, 2020

Grain Markets put 2019 in the rearview mirror

Here’s the full conversation with Joe Vaclavik of Standard Grain in Chicago. You can download it on your computer by clicking on the three dots on the right side of the player. Play it here on your mobile device.

Grain Markets officially bid 2019 a not-so-fond adieu. Like most other segments of American agriculture, grain farmers are more than happy to put 2019 in the past. Joe Vaclavik, founder and president of Standard Grains in Chicago, says last year didn’t start off well in the grain markets and it just kept going for the next 12 months.

“We had a pretty comfortable, if not burdensome supply situation entering the calendar year, so, the calendar year kind of began similar to what we’ve seen the last two, three, four years, a comfortable supply-demand situation, not anything terribly tight. Low prices, farmers not making a ton of money, you got the trade war going on, a lot of overall negative factors I would say to start the year.”

He says the spring is when things began to get “interesting.”

“Both in the markets and the weather. We basically sold the markets off until about that May time frame, that I think traders started to realize that we had some serious weather problems. Wet weather, cold weather, planting delays continued, and typically we are always told the crop’s always going to be planted, and planting delays are not a cause for concern.”

However, as the spring continued, things turned more serious in the markets.

“Planting delays turned into a major concern. There was a point in time in late May into maybe the mid part of June where we just had no clue what type of production was possible, and out of that, we had a very significant crop scare rally in the corn market and in the soybean market, to a lesser extent.”

Farmers continued to plant corn long past what would be a normal planting date. Vaclavik says the market was rallying as farmers continued to plant, even into early July in a few locations. He says the market peaked in June because it bought a “whole bunch of corn acres” that wouldn’t have been there otherwise.

Vaclavik says farmers faced challenges from a weather standpoint, logistics, and from a demand standpoint with trade challenges in 2019. With all that stacked against them, the question is how much grain U.S. farmers produced last year. Vaclavik says the answer depends on who you ask.

“A lot of people think that the numbers USDA has put out are just not achievable given the late planting, the wet spring, the late harvest, so there’s still some debate out there. I’m not one to tell you with any degree of certainty that we know for sure what the crop is, and we’ve got this big report on January 10, which is the final crop production report, and I suppose if USDA is going to make any sort of sweeping adjustment, it probably comes on that date.”

Again, Joe Vaclavik is the president of Standard Grains in Chicago.

July 11, 2019July 11, 2019

July WASDE is nothing more than a “placeholder”

The July World Ag Supply and Demand Estimate Report (WASDE) didn’t make many changes from the previous month. In fact, it wasn’t worth much at all to a lot of the industry. USDA admitted it will have a better picture of planted acres in the U.S. after resurveying producers this month and releasing the updated numbers in August.

Joe Vaclavik, founder and president of Standard Grain in Chicago, says this month’s WASDE report was considered by many to be a “placeholder.”

He’s not surprised that the number didn’t change a great deal from the last report…tape

There weren’t a lot of surprises on the demand side of the WASDE report…tape

Vaclavik says the grain stocks numbers likely aren’t accurate…tape

With this round of WADE reports done, Vaclavik says the markets are very much locked in on two things. He tells agweb.com that markets will be watching weather and the August report. “Because of the variability in both crop conditions and crop progress, it’s very, very difficult for anyone to look at a weather forecast or pattern and say if it’s bullish or bearish,” Vaclavik says.

He says a lot of farmers might be looking for a rise in prices because this year’s crop is anticipated to be very small. “Just because the crop is light doesn’t mean it’s guaranteed to go higher,” Vaclavik says. “You don’t want to completely abandon any semblance of a marketing plan. We’ve been hoping to get to these corn prices, and it took five or six years to finally get back here.

“Be ready for volatility,” he added. “The environment will continue to be volatile until we learn more about the crop in August.”

Again, Joe Vaclavik is President and Founder of Standard Grains.