ALTAMONT, Ill. (Staff) – On May 22, Jeff Higgs was helping his father build a house.
He would rather have been seeding his 1,200 acres to corn, soybeans and wheat but the fields were too wet.
Close to the end of May, weeks after the planting usually is finished, not a seed had been sown on this farm in south-central Illinois.
“We have nothing in yet,” the 34 year old said as he worked on the house. “If the weather clears up, we still can have a decent crop but the chances of a great crop are gone. I guess I’m past the grumpy stage but I’m getting edgy about when I’ll get the crop in.”
Read Also
Going beyond “Resistant” on crop seed labels
Variety resistance is getting more specific on crop disease pathogens, but that information must be conveyed in a way that actually helps producers make rotation decisions.
About 115 kilometres northwest Dave Ramsay is in the same boat.
Just one-third of his 450 acres have been planted and many of his fields still lie under water.
“The year isn’t lost by a long shot but it is getting critical,” said the 42-year-old Rochester, Ill. farmer. “Yields are dropping before we ever get it in the ground.”
From the Dakotas and Missouri, Minnesota and Kansas, Illinois and Iowa come stories of floods and heavy rains, delayed planting and worries about next fall’s crop.
At the University of Illinois, researcher Bill Shoemaker has calculated that for every day past May 21 the crop is not in the ground, the expected yield drops one percent.
Illinois state agricultural statistician Gerald Clampet said that by May 21, just 37 percent of the corn acreage and four percent of soybean acres had been seeded.
No relief in sight
“The average over the past five years has been to have 82 percent of the corn in by now so we’re way behind,” he said. “This is the latest since 1978 and there’s no end in sight.”
Last week, after three days of hot, windy drying weather across Illinois that raised some spirits, the rain started again and lasted into the weekend.
Farmers across the state were figuring that storm would set back the completion of seeding at least into early June, raising the spectre of yield declines of 10-15 percent at least.
For many, that could be their profit margin this year.
“It’s frustrating,” said Enid Schlipf, a 47-year-old Gridley, Ill. farmer who operates a 1,250 acre corn and soybean farm 190 km southwest of Chicago.
On a sunny Saturday morning when he would normally be on the land, he was in town watching a baseball game. Back home, just 35 percent of his corn crop was planted and none of his soybeans.
“Normally, we’d be done by now and it makes you anxious but I don’t think there’s an attitude of depression yet. We can’t control it so why fret about it? But call me again in two or three weeks time if I haven’t finished.”
