Slight delay in Corn Belt, Wheat Belt receives some too little too late rain

Chad Bell   The only farming in my future today is doing a little bit of repair work on the beam planter and finishing some setup for a new group of pigs in my pig barn.

Paul Yeager   All right, so you do have to keep moving, even if it's raining. How are we here in late April,

Chad Bell   I've got about a little over 10% of my corn planted and pretty close to 30%. Soybeans planted as of yesterday, last night. We planted three days there the week of the tent, the week of Easter, planted about 25% of our soybeans and that little bit of corn during that time and soil conditions were just perfect. There was you couldn't have couldn't ask for anything better than what we had. And so we decided to plant some corn and beans that week and time will tell if that was the right move or if we should have planted more or less but we planted some and put some eggs in the basket.

Paul Yeager   Is that up? What you plan? No.

Chad Bell   Nope, not yet. I dug on some of it yesterday morning. And it's got a it's got a ways to go the corn does for sure. The beans at least where I dug I didn't spend a lot of time in either field. But I what I did dig was pretty close to coming out here. Another few days.

Paul Yeager   If it was maybe a little warmer that that seed probably what a pot.

Chad Bell   Yeah, if I if I would have planted earlier in the week, probably that week of Easter. It would probably be up. I planted Tuesday or Wednesday, Thursday, Friday of that week soybeans and I think that that helped to kind of drag my feet a little bit and wait till the latter end of the warm weather. Otherwise, I probably would have had beans up maybe yesterday and they would have gotten frost and pretty hard yesterday.

Paul Yeager   Are you kicking yourself going? I should have planted more? Are you still okay with your decision?

Chad Bell   I'm still okay with it. I think looking back now, I would have planted a different hybrid than I did on corn. I think time will tell on that.

Paul Yeager   I mean, what are your emotions on a day like today where you're kind of stuck doing those other things instead of rolling the wheels?

Chad Bell   Well, if this was a, you know, there's no such thing as an average year. But I guess if I had to pick an average planting start date, it would have been yesterday. And you know, the last, the last full week of April is kind of my year in year out target to get started. And so I just got to think big picture. And we're ahead of normal right now. And what I do have in the ground I feel pretty good about at the moment. So I mean, there's still a lot of time and who knows, maybe next week will be sunshine and 85 all week and we'll we'll have the crop in the ground by next Friday. I don't know.

Paul Yeager   Mike, I have You're fresh off the farm here. You were doing a field day. This morning. What are you seeing in the fields of Oklahoma.

Mike Schulte   We are on the second field to stop this morning, we will have our third this afternoon in southwest Oklahoma. Today we've been down at the Tipton Research Station, and we will wrap up at the Altus Research Station this evening. And I have to be honest, it is the first time in the last 10 years that I have been to these build bays in southwest Oklahoma where we have seen measurable rainfall across the state last night, it's not going to change much. I don't think at this point in time from what we're going to see on the perspective crop for this coming year. In many instances, it's just too little too late. But there are some areas that did receive moisture in southwest Oklahoma this past year that look like they will make you know in the mid 30s And your higher management intensive producers, there are some areas maybe we're you're gonna see some stuff in the low 60s. Again, those are just instances of the crop being areas of a few and in, in far between places. So that's, you know, that's not what the state looks like overall, overall, as you get into South Central, Central, northwest Oklahoma, where we have the majority of our wheat production and then in the Panhandle regions, really dire situations across the state are thankful for the rain. Just wish it would have came, you know, two to three months sooner.

Paul Yeager   For those of us we know Oklahoma, I 35 kind of cuts you in half or in thirds. Is that right? Is that about right? Pretty well straight down the center of the state. So you're talking on the west edge of 35 It's been dry continued to be dry and it's a tough situation

Mike Schulte   as you move further west. Yes, west of 35 Dry situation. That's where the majority of our wheat production takes place in the state of Oklahoma. There are some areas. USDA has this in a region where 6% of the crop is favored good 1%, excellent. 31%, fair 63% in the poor to very poor category, those numbers are just really probably nothing like we've seen in quite some time I looked back, I think it was about 2011, when we had the significant drought back then that we were kind of looking at the same situation as far as crop quality, but that 6% Good 1% Excellent. It would be in the southern vor southwest regions, or it'd be in the south central regions of the state where we did get a little bit of moisture. Other than that. There's been a long period of time before we've had measurable rainfall in many places of the state, in fact, and a lot of locations, it's been around them out in the panhandle 235 days since we've had a quarter inch of rain in those regions. And in many instances, in northwest Oklahoma. We've gone 120 days, 180 days where we've been in the same situation less than a quarter inch rain and measurable rainfall. And then that really hurts us in northwest Oklahoma because that's where our large wheat production area is.

Paul Yeager   Our full conversation will be released Tuesday as part of the MTOM podcast

Contact: Paul.Yeager@iowapbs.org