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Central Texas Panhandle | It is pretty sad down here this year and I'm just in the Panhandle. No dryland crops whatsoever. Harvest will be short and depressing this year. Most guys are already saying they are ready for next year. We all want to forget 2011. The first two fields we harvested this year made around 245 last year and this year one made 105 and the other made 147. The third field made 261 last year and this year it made a disappointing 130. The heat killed us. We can handle dry by planting few enough acres to still have about 8 gallons/min/acre. Most of our corn splits water with cotton late in the season but typically well after pollination. We had 50 days over 100 degrees and many of those were closer to 110 than 100. What hurt us early was the wind. We were trying to keep cotton wet enough to come to a stand so were out of the corn. The corn didn't need water at that time but we were using up any profile we had built. June and July continued to be hot with absolutely ZERO rain since last October. I can remember one particular Sunday when the thermometers were reading anything from 113 to 117 with a steady 35 mph wind gusting to 50. The next day most fields had leaves burned and falling off on the southwest sides (deeper into the field than the typical burned edge). At that point it was a matter of just hanging on. We thought we had made it until about 4 weeks ago when our temps shot back up over 100 after a week long cool spell. That proved to be detrimental to many fields and many were chopped for silage and some were too far along and are being baled for hay. We have one field that is our lightest water that made an ear but cooked in late August and won't combine. Had it adjusted and are waiting on the swather. The next best thing for corn this year was COC acres. We were able to keep it wetter with good ground cover and it was typically later after coming up through it all. BTW, the best thing for corn here this year was if it was left in the bag. Looking forward to the cold front moving in over night. 70-80% chance of rain tomorrow night into Thursday with highs on Thursday around 60. Really praying to the Man above that he'll help us get a wheat crop. In the meantime we are keeping the Faith. Bright spot in my year will be in December when we welcome our 3rd child into the world a week before Christmas.
Edit: Keeping pivots running is generally a lot of work. This year it was just unreasonable between stuck sprinklers and engine troubles. We are simply WORN OUT!
Edited by WTfarmer 9/13/2011 21:29
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Irrigated Corn Question
