Shipman to Lake Erie and Back

By Randy Darr - President - SoilRight Consulting Services

Through my travels of the past week, crops across the central and eastern Corn Belt are showing signs of struggling. The detrimental effects from the wet spring are becoming evident across the entire area. Due to the wet weather root growth could not occur at an adequate rate due to the lack of oxygen in the soil. Now once the soil has dried out, the roots cannot provide adequate moisture to the plant because it was unable to grow to deeper regions of the soil. Therefore, the shallow rooted plants are showing signs of every stress under the sun. Corn appears to be feeling the effects the most, though beans can’t be fairing too well either. We need rain and cooler temperatures. That’s funny (sort of), slightly over a month ago we needed the exact opposite.