Took a fast trip down and back 1-75 last week. Detroit Michigan to Southern Florida
Had to be back for a commitment that could not be cancelled by Sat.
I know this is not a very large area of crops, but was surprised that not one field had even started tillage or planting all the way down and back. Nothing, not one tractor was moving, any place, down or back. Never saw that before
Some water standing. On the way back, looked like the ground had dried out, but then it rained, so still nothing done that I could see.
Drove through a lot of heavy rain or had rained just recently, which covered a fair bit of distance, on the way back
Water standing on the way down and rain on the way back
Normally, south of us, a lot of tillage and planting is started or done by now, depending on location
North Florida was dry with sand blowing on any open or bare ground
Could not believe how it went from wet to dry in a few miles, but think it is more of a soil type with Florida being mostly beach sand and a lot of irrigation
Ohio local paper had a headline about how late the season was. Farmers worried about wet soil delaying planting
And then I read about good planting conditions in the northern part of the corn belt
Strange combination of weather events. Hope that doesn't mean a hot dry summer, from the looks of the drought monitor
By the way, in our area, we have had corn delayed for 4 weeks, before emergence and a good, even stand
Just the way it is in our location. Cold soil temps will delay emergence, but rather have it in the ground as something is happenig, albeit, very slowly, some yrs.
Our concern is a late frost in May on emerged corn,/beans thus we start planting about April 25 at the earliest
Start harvest by Oct 20 at 28% moisture, to beat the fall snow, which means we all have to have corn driers
Might be a few small acreages that can wait and bin dry, but very few
We move the majority of our corn in June/July and Aug. for work logistics
We are on a 1/2 load restriction, on our local road, during spring, so can't move corn during that time
Then it is all hands on deck to plant the crop, fast as possible
We got very little SRW planted last fall, compared to normal, although our acreage doesn't have much affect on the wheat market
Some looks good and some doesn't. Some places hard to tell if wheat was planted or not
