Lac qui Parle County Minnesota | One hears and reads about different crop condition in the country, but I just had the chance to have my own 70mph crop tour. We made a visit to Laramie WY to visit my nephew who is going to school at WyoTech. Nothing scientific, just some casual observations from a neophyte crop observer. The first part of our trip took us from western Minnesota to Mitchell SD. Crops looked decent but the farther south we traveled (toward Sioux Falls SD) the more stressed the corn crop look. Conditions varied with some great looking corn fields to some that were firing from top to bottom. Once we headed west on I90 the crops were tough looking. Isolated great looking fields but many with burned up spots.
Going into Nebraska, we traveled down 183 to 7 to 91 to 40 to 83 into North Platte. The difference between irrigated and non irrigated was like night and day. A lot of the irrigated looked great but the corners were lost. In a few spots the the irrigation was going but the corn still looked stressed. Very interesting country to travel through.
On our way back from Laramie we traveled the whole length (west to east) through the center of South Dakota. (90 to Wall then 14 to Miller then 45 north to 212 then east to Minnesota). Eastern Wyoming and western South Dakota pastures seemed very dry and we did drive through some areas that had burned from lightning strikes. Even got to watch a helicopter fighting a fire in eastern Wyoming. Very dry. As soon as we started hitting crop land the crops looked terrible. Corn was firing from top to bottom with lots of complete dead spots. Beans were very uneven. There were a few good spots by Redfield and Clark but for the most part SD crops looked tough. Sunflowers seemed short and the wheat that wasn't harvested looked very short. There did seem to be a terrific 2006 pheasant crop. Interesting to get out and see country that I hadn't scene since 1985 when I was on a ag tour during my Tech College days. My hats off to ranchers for all the MILES of fence they have to take care off. Overall, things were a lot drier and widespread than what I had imagined. |
My own 70mph crop tour....
