Chief Illiniwek - 2/19/2018 07:20

What us farmers need to be worried about going forward is the perfect year. We ticked almost every bad weather box last year.

- got everything planted timely in April, but then had multiple flooding rain events and cold weather (I heard people speculate that the cold temps are actually better for submerged corn as they aren't resperating, dunno if this is true or not), that resulted in a lot of replant in both corn and beans

- almost no rainfall starting early June and stretching through to mid September. You all can roll your eyes and say crying wolf but my area was over a foot behind on rainfall in 16 (albeit with a couple timely rains) and behind another FOOT in 17 and almost nothing during the summer. Proof is all the wells and farm ponds up here which are dry, just come have a look.

- the two things we avoided was hot temps. August was beautiful as far as temperature, and April weather was decent for planting. A little cool but nothing had to be mudded in (the first time).

Yields ended up being great. Especially beans, most of which in my area on the good soil were over 70. I had a field that I planted and then replanted two more times go over 250. One thing about our area is nobody spares much expense. Seed treatments, high fertility, fungicide, etc. So I'm sure that helps but I'm convinced the newest genetics are the real deal.

I guess what I'm getting at with my rambling is if we have a nice weather year this year, look out for 180+ national average, and you better be 85% sold from any summer "rally" when it happens.