Soybean Progress

Working in St. Charles County today.  We saw lots of planters in the field.  Alsok tillage equipment and sprayers were going.  Be careful out there.  We lucked out on the rain.  It stayed to the south.

Short Planting Window

It looks like we will have a short planting window so there was a flurry of field activity today.  Planting sidedressing, and fertilizing all were activities I saw.  The bottom picture is a nice looking field of soybeans south of Raymond.

Butterweed Doing Well

Looking North toward Butler T, yellow is butterweed and brown is some sort of dock.  Most corn is planted, but some fields waiting for soybeans area mess.  Still not much field work going today.

Northern Macoupin County

We covered most of Northern Macoupin County today. Corn is looking good except in wet spots.  Some is just coming up.  Not many soybeans are planted.  Soil was wet for farm work, but firm enough for sampling.  I saw many planters in people's yard today, but none as interesting as the one below.  I am curious as to when it was last used to plant corn.

 

How Important is Weed Control

Kansas State University completed a 7 year study on weed control.  They found that yields were reduced by 50% if weeds are left uncontrolled.  The study published in No-Till Farmer says the annual cost of uncontrolled weeds is 43 Billion Dollars.  Weed control is needed even in organic situations.  Organic farmers use different techniques.

Road Trip Report

We took a little trip to Farmington yesterday.  Lots of corn is planted and is in growth stages V2 to V5.  We did not see much a lot bigger.  There was some field activity, but not much.  Bean planting a spraying is what was going on.  We did not see any beans out of the ground.

It has been cold, so I am tempted to say the picture below is showing snow.  It is actually Cottonwood cotton in St. Charles County Missouri.  This corn was the biggest we have sampled and looked very good.

Northern Illinois is wet

Reports from Northern Illinois are that it is very wet.  The photo below was provided by my daughter-in-law, Rebecca Rahe.  It shows the Kiswaukee River near Sycamore.

Second Crop Corn IN Brazil

By Eduardo Paim:

For here we are not having good rains; lack of rainfall is hampering the development of second crop corn. The same regions that suffered from lack of rains for soybeans are suffering from lack of rain now in corn.

The states of Bahia, Tocantins, Maranhao and Piaui are finishing harvest of soybean and productivity reduction is greater than 30%. 
For corn second crop should be reduced between 10% and 15% in production in Brazil. 

The government of Brazil / COBNAB are not talking about real numbers about our production, they say that we will reap most of what is real. 

River Traffic

Yesterday we were stopped by the drawbridge at Florence as the Erna E Honeycut and then the Mari Lampton passed by.  The Honeycutt was pushing a variety of cargos. barges were loaded with coal, scrap iron, scrap aluminum, rock, iron ore and at least one tanker.  The Mari Lampton was pushing 3 tanker barges.  Not sure of cargo.  The biggest tonage on the river is agriculture products.