4th of July crop update in Illinois and Oklahoma

Paul Yeager   Hi, welcome. This is the MToM Show podcast, a production of Iowa PBS and the Market to Market TV show. I'm Paul Yeager. Glad to have you here. Thank you. We thank you for those that have subscribed or liked or shared any of our episodes. We appreciate fans like Russ, and Jeff. And Jim, thank you couldn't do it without you. And we're glad to have you on board. This week we are going into the field, it's time for our July 4, crop check. knee high by the Fourth of July is long in the rear view. However, Mother Nature shut down the rain faucet and a lot of the grain belt. What's that mean for corn? Well, for Chad Bell, Viola, Illinois, who we talked to in the spring, who was kind of waiting to go, who's finally in the field, we're going to find out what corn and beans look good. We'll chat about some much needed rain that just arrived, what that means for his crop and crops. We're going to show you a different field to start that discussion. We're also going to go to Oklahoma where Mike Schulte will check in. You've seen Mike on the Market to Market TV show he is the head of the Oklahoma wheat commission. We'll talk a little bit about the state as a whole and how things have changed there since we last chatted in April. So that's what we're going to do today crop tour in a couple of places. Hope you enjoy. Now let's get to Chad Bell out in the field. Now, I might not know every crop. I know that's not corn behind you. What is that?

Chad Bell   This is soft red winter wheat in Illinois, upstate Illinois. What is this soft white? I don't know my wheat very well.

Paul Yeager   Why do you grow it?

Chad Bell   Grow it for just for something to kind of another crop to learn how to grow, I guess. And I like messing with cover crops. And so it gives me a good opportunity to try some things that I don't normally get to try after corn or soybeans and also a spot to go with some summer hog manure if I need a place.

Paul Yeager   So when did that field go in?

Chad Bell   This would have been, I think, right at the end of September 1 week of October.

Paul Yeager   And how did it look this spring?

Chad Bell   Looked good. It was like I said, I've I've only grown wheat probably four times now. And so I don't have a lot of experience with it to know whether wheat crop looks good or bad or average. But it seems like anything that I've grown here the last few years is looked really good. Early spring and it's a greens up nice and early. And so it really sticks out and it's just really nice to look at first thing so whether that's means that's good, I don't know. But it looks good to me.

Paul Yeager   In June, we normally see crops green, we don't see him brown like they are behind you. But we were getting to a point where well, what were we getting to with like the corn and beans behind you?

Chad Bell   Yeah, so we were up until this past Thursday. We had basically had next to no rain since about May 13, I believe. And corn and soybeans, corn especially was struggling in the area. Curling up during the day and starting to get some of that gray ish look to it. And even on the days where highs rolling in the upper 70s or low 80s. Corn was really looking tough in this area. And but anytime it would rain, I'd kind of come out of it. And we had some really nice cool nights and so that that really helped a lot of the corn wasn't stressed overnight with prolonged warm temperatures. So things look okay, now, we've got about five inches of rain right where I'm standing here since Thursday. So a lot of rain in a short amount of time, but most of its soaked in

Paul Yeager   five inches. That's ridiculous. I guess I didn't look exactly at your dot. How many different storms did that come across in 123?

Chad Bell   I want to say three. I was gone for the first one which brought about a half an inch. And then the other two brought about over four and a half. And so where I live just about five miles north of where I'm standing, I only had an inch and a quarter for that whole that whole stretch so even even five miles there was over four inches a difference in rain.

Paul Yeager   And just to overall generality. You're a long i ad in Illinois, right? Yep.

Chad Bell   I'm south of Interstate 80 by about 30 miles and when Just of interstate 70 for about 15 miles, so I'm just straight south of the Quad Cities about 20 miles.

Paul Yeager   You mentioned that it's pretty isolated, like in the sense, you could go five to 10 miles in either direction, why don't you expand a little bit? What is 5, 4, 3, 2, 1? What what do you think the area about 50 miles in any direction has had around you?

Chad Bell   That's about, it's about the same. It's variable. I think, from the map that I saw this morning on the local news, east of here, caught a pretty good amount, maybe similar to what I had here where I'm standing. But then north and west, was in the inch range. And so pretty variable in the area. But there are some pockets like like what I'm standing in where, you know, a couple miles makes a huge difference.

Paul Yeager   Now your spring, when did you finally I think when we talked you'd kind of dribbled a little bit out. But when did you really kind of get going and get everything in the ground.

Chad Bell   So that last week of April, 1 week of May is really when we got got everything else put in. I want to say that I started corn on a Thursday that last week of April, finishing the rest of it. And soybeans. I started a couple days ahead of that maybe Monday or Tuesday of that last week of April. But we had everything we had our soybeans finished up that I think the May 1 or whatever that Saturday was, and then by the following Saturday had all had all the corn in

Paul Yeager   do you find that some of the grain that was in some of the that was in earlier or middle or later has performed better, or at least looked better?

Chad Bell   Yeah, I'd say maybe the earliest planet is average at best. And then that late April 1 week of May is probably the sweet spot is what it looks like right now here. And then anything after the first week of May start tailing off pretty fast. I did have one field the corn that I planted on May 20. That we had spring tiling done on the field. And we were waiting on some rain to do a little bit of field work to get it ready to plant. And we got three tents to rain, I think the 13th or 14th of May, which allowed us to do what we wanted to for getting the field ready to plant and then I waited there for another rain chance that never came. So about a week later on the 20th I planted corn and that corn looks the toughest out of everything. It's short, a lot of potassium deficiency pretty much all the way across the field. And there's several areas where the corn didn't come up because the ground was so dry, it just didn't germ so it looks pretty tough. And I should uh, should a stationed out in it this morning. So you can see worst case scenario, but there's a lot of there's a lot of tough looking fields that were planted after that first week of May here and I don't think that that rains gonna turn things around for them. They might kind of slow the bleeding or stop the bleeding. But I think there's been some damage done to a lot of those fields.

Paul Yeager   We know that knee high by the Fourth of July has long since passed. But do you have anything below that around you?

Chad Bell   My field might be in some areas. But otherwise most a lot of the corn that was put in that late April 1 week of May it's actually starting to shoot some tassels you gotta look pretty hard for him yet. But they're they're there the flag leaf is out on most of that corn and soy here this week and next week we'll probably really be going full tassel and starting pollination.

Paul Yeager   So yet that two to five inches depending on what field and where it's at. That's gonna get you through pollination you think?

Chad Bell   I think so. It's, it's really hard to tell how far it's gonna go with how dry we were. But it's, it couldn't have come at any any better time. I guess if I would have asked for one now is better than later. But it's interesting. We get five inches of rain in one shot. Sure would have been nice to get that kind of scattered. I guess it averages out but it sure would have been nice to average it out.

Paul Yeager   You're just asking to be average Is that so? That's a hard right word.

Chad Bell   I'm just asking for a perfect growing season. That's all

Paul Yeager   when you drive around and look, I guess lawns are they green? I mean that's never a barometer of how a crops doing but

Chad Bell   yeah, our lawns since about Thursday lawns have really greened up and but prior to that they're most everything was brown. So

Paul Yeager   and when you say it was brown around I know lawn again, not the barometer of everything, but did you get the sense that people were starting to get pretty stressed and worried before that rains started falling?

Chad Bell   Yeah, thanks. So, you know, a lot of guys that I've talked to I just asked him, you know, what do you think about your crop or the crop in the area and most guys that have some a lot more experience than I have said, we've done some damage, we've taken the top off, but a lot of guys still say that we have good potential now, whether that's the top end is 200. Now versus 250, where we can kind of hope for on most years, but I don't know, it's going to be one of those things where we'll have to see how pollination goes and what kind of heat or cool we get, and rainfall from here for the Greenfield time. Moving forward is much more critical this year than what isn't a in what years past that we've had.

Paul Yeager   You're not really wanting to go another six weeks between rain. So I mean, if you can just say three, give you something in three weeks.

Chad Bell   I maybe even sooner than that. I'm guessing this five inches that I got right here where I'm standing. I think I had half of that half of that rain amount on the other third of our acres. And so I I hope we don't go three weeks. But if that's if we go three weeks, we go three weeks, I got crop insurance. And that's kind of what it's for.

Paul Yeager   Does this rain give you? Well, I guess after Friday's report from USDA about corn, it doesn't give you much incentive to sell. But before that, were you going? Well, maybe I could forward sell some stuff.

Chad Bell   Yeah, looking back hindsight, 2020 marketing. I showed a sold some more corn, I did sell some corn but at the time. That was kind of one of the first times that I'd ever had the thought of well, how much corn am I going to have to be able to comfortably sell and be be under my crop insurance guarantee? And so I did I did sell some and I did inquire on what if I don't have the bushels to sell that I commit. And so went through all that. And I'm just glad we got some rain. Now I don't know what it's going to work out to as far as bushel save. But I looking back now with this rain, I should have sold more, but I have some sold at over six bucks. So I'm fortunate for that.

Paul Yeager   There you go. You have to take the victories where you can?

Chad Bell   That's right. Yeah, when you

Paul Yeager   I guess let's go back to the field behind you what's next? That doesn't look like it's too far from running a machine through it.

Chad Bell   Yep, so we'll be running a combine through this field either this week or next on the wheat. And then we'll be seeing the cover crop here after we put some hog manure on. I've actually actually not sure on the cover crop thing yet, with forage being so short in this area with the dryness, some kind of weight and then seeing on a couple of neighbors that might need some spot to seed some emergency forage to get their cows through to a winter or even through winter. And so depends on how that how that all shakes out in the neighborhood. Otherwise, next thing we'll be looking at fungicide application on corn, and soybeans. And then after that, we'll be getting ready for harvest here in September, October.

Paul Yeager   The cattle grazing around you had anybody pulled off a pastures?

Chad Bell   Yeah, there's a lot of pasture that's looking pretty poor right now. And several guys have mentioned that they're feeding some hay right now too, which is completely abnormal for this time of year. Pastures normally aren't going short till August, September. And most guys are clipping most guys are clipping their pastures off even or bail and some of them off to which that's not happening this year. And so that's kind of kind of scary to think about what might might happen moving forward if we go back into our dry pattern and those areas that caught some rain versus some of those areas that still really yet to catch a nice rain.

Paul Yeager   And I think we also the last time we talked to the Mississippi, which is you know, 30 miles from you was was pretty high up. It's already fallen back down our tile lines running our rivers, creeks. What do they look like?

Chad Bell   Everything's still running. I haven't checked any tile recently, but the ones that I do drive by every day, they do have a trickle to them. I don't know how, but some of some of them are still trickling water some art so I don't quite understand how our subsoil seems as dry as it is, but yet we still have a few tiles running. I don't understand it, but apparently there's some free water floating around somewhere.

Paul Yeager   Well, let's go to the optimistic farm. outlook. How optimistic are you for the rest of 2023? Chad?

Chad Bell   I don't know. Honestly, my corn crop still looks pretty decent with the exception of the last planted field, my manure acres that have hog manure on him from last fall, they probably look the best. I have no idea what to expect. I kind of want to wait till I get through pollination and start seeing some of the early ear fill before I even throw a number out there. But optimistically I hope I'm still over 200. But last year, I average to 30 over 230 On our farm, and that was a record for our farm. So I don't envision being close to that. But you know, it still looks like we have potential what that potential is, I don't really know. But soybeans that hard, hard to tell, until we get some August rains and grain fill and all that. They look like beans to me that could yield anywhere from zero to 100 right now.

Paul Yeager   Well, were they kind of stunted prior to the rain, did it look like they were just kind of waiting for some moisture?

Chad Bell   A little bit. I did hear some comments from guys about they were just sitting still which mine didn't seem to be. And I don't know why it just they just seemed like they were getting their normal mid late June growth started, you know, or they sit till about that time and then start growing. So, in my opinion, my soybeans look about average for this time of year really?

Paul Yeager   Well, we'll take it so we're optimistic. We're, you know, we might not hit record, but we at this point look like a crop?

Chad Bell   Yeah, I think so. It's unfortunate that the new crop corn has definitely slipped back to some prices that I'm not too impressed with right now as far as my breakeven and all that goes. So I guess it's kind of a wait and see right now on the market direction. And hopefully we can drum up some demand without trim and supply on the farm.

Paul Yeager   All right, Chad Bell, appreciate the update. Thank you so much.

Chad Bell   Thank you appreciate it.

Paul Yeager   Mike, would you call the month of June and insulting to wheat farmers when you go all that time without rain. I remember our conversation back in April where it was 100 days, 200 days, all these number hundreds of days where you haven't had measurable rain. And then just as it's time to roll the combine, it rains is that the ultimate irony.

Mike Schulte   When we talked in April, it was it was a much different situation than what we are dealing with today. I think in many instances, producers are thankful for the moisture because we needed it so badly. And it allowed us probably to be able to finish this crop out and have grain fill in areas where producers are probably thinking that there wasn't going to be a crop at all, by no means does the crop you know, as far as yield, look that great across the state. However, it is going to allow us to have something where we thought we were going to have nothing. And so I think for that the producers have been thankful. But it has been extremely challenging trying to get this crop harvested. I think it's probably been one of the more challenging harvest seasons that I've seen in my lifetime. And just talking with other agricultural producers across the state who've maybe even been in this 40 or 50 years the they're saying the same thing.

Paul Yeager   I remember a couple of years ago here in the Corn Belt, we had a whole lot of September, October rain. And there was this run on the track tires for the combines to roll and then of course it never rained again during harvest and the video I saw recently from your state, it's green underneath that wheat that's coming out. So I guess you have to be optimistic there.

Mike Schulte   Yeah, it's, you know, it's just it we are having some problems now with weed pressure in the field. Producers, you know, trying to move as fast as they can, in some instances haven't been able to. There have been some producers have decided to just abandoned fields that they thought that they were maybe even going to be able to harvest even after they had made those management decisions back in April and May now that the weeds have taken over and so now they're going to end up getting that and baling that for hay. Certainly, you know not really great for us from a production standpoint at the Southern Plains but it's just producers are having to weigh all options as they move forward. And it seems like every day there's there's a little bit of a different type of obstacle that we are facing given what we've had to deal with as far as weather just over this this past year for this growing season.

Paul Yeager   helped me out a little bit again, I think I asked you this again in the spring. You are much Oklahoma is predominantly winter wheat There's Is there much spring?

Mike Schulte   No, we are 98%, hard red winter wheat, we do have a 1%, soft red winter in northeastern Oklahoma and then out in the Panhandle 1% of hard white weeks, those are classifications. So

Paul Yeager   what normally happens then after the winter wheat goes out here in June, your second crop of something comes in.

Mike Schulte   Yeah. And so also, producers have also been making management decisions on areas maybe where there wasn't going to be a wheat crop. And now that we have gotten moisture, in the month of May, and in the beginning of June, they have been weighing options of putting summer crops out. So certainly up in northern Oklahoma, their microclimate is a little bit different than in southern Oklahoma, you'll see corn and soybeans being planted, I think that the corn looks extremely favorable in our state, which is kind of unusual for us, because we do tend to end up being hot and dry later on. I think the verdicts still probably will be out on that if you look at the future forecasts. But things do look different from a standpoint of the summer crops that are out there right now. And even in the panhandle region where they have had moisture. You know, I think producers are hopeful that they're going to be able to irrigate from here on out and maybe have some opportunities with summer crops, it is really amazing what you can do if you just get a little moisture from Mother Nature in that region. And so we have gotten that. So I think producers are more positive on that. And do you

Paul Yeager   feel that the collective spirit of the Oklahoma farmer has picked up with the rain?

Mike Schulte   Well, I think I think it has changed the mindset is that you know, what is our next move? Maybe there is hope for optimism, because you know, I think certainly three months ago things looked really really terrible from the situation that we weren't going to have a wheat crop, which is our primary crop. And then it's really hurt the the cattlemen to in the state as far as you know, not having the grass pastures. For the cattle. They've had to liquidate herds, we have not had hay for our cattle. And so you know, we've had to have, we've had to really look at just different management scenarios that producers have had to had to make decisions on that, you know, that they typically maybe have not had to deal with in the last eight to 10 years.

Paul Yeager   You mentioned baling some of the of the wheat for hay, but what about the hay fields themselves? What about the pastures has? Are you seeing green in those areas now?

Mike Schulte   The pastures look much different. And I think even in south central southwest Oklahoma, as of this week, again, we're getting back into warmer, Hotter, Drier temperatures in those regions. Just as we're talking this week, I think the verdict is going to be out in some of those areas. But overall, things look pretty favorable for our pastures right now. hay meadows are looking good. I know producers in my area are laying down hay today is as we are talking. I think that, you know, we're hopeful that with lemania, that things are going to still look better. But one thing that I think that we're a little bit cautious of is that we were 103 degrees, or 102 degrees yesterday, we're gonna be 103. Today, we are cooling off some in the evenings to where we're around 7577 degrees. But you know, if we ended up in a situation where we just turn off hot with extreme temperatures and dry again, then that's probably going to look different once again, as well.

Paul Yeager   I'm sorry, Mike, but my experiences in your state are usually in the summer when I'm in there, it's always hot to me, always seems to be 100 degrees, Texas has been extremely hot as well. So you're saying that some of that heat has kind of been sneaking into your state as well, when you say it's 102 103?

Mike Schulte   We really noticed that the last few days. Yes. And so, you know, I think on that side of things, producers are hopeful maybe we can just get if we could get five to six days of dry weather, it would really help us progress with wheat harvest and central and northern Oklahoma and try to get this this crop behind us. I don't know if we're going to get that because it sounds like with the forecast this week that we're maybe going to cool off a little again, and we are going to be getting moisture over the weekend on the Fourth of July holiday. So you know, but given everything that the crop has been through, we don't have high yields in the state, we're probably going to be looking at a 25 bushel average for this year. Last year, our average was 28 bushels, because we also had drought conditions so you know, certainly not favorable. So even though we've had these challenges with moisture, one thing we do know is is that our quality, even though the yields have not been high have had been extremely favorable, really across the state. In southern Oklahoma. We were looking at 60 to 63 pound test weight averages that dropped off a little here in the last Last week as central Oklahoma, we're going to have some lower test weights just because we have had a larger amounts of rain in that region when the crop was ready to go. But as harvest is progressed into northern Oklahoma, even with the rains that they've received this week, we're still cutting 60 pound test white, wheat and above. And so, you know, I think that that's a testament to our public wheat research programs at the university level with Oklahoma State University, or Kansas State. You know, with the, with the wheat research and breeding technologies that we've been focusing on with nitrogen efficiency traits and drought tolerance, I think it'd be safe to say that if we were planting the same varieties that we planted in 1996, when I was a junior in high school, when we had a really terrible drought year, that was certainly not as bad as this and we didn't have a crop, we probably wouldn't have a crop at all this year as

Paul Yeager   well. So the fourth of July is kind of the reason we're talking what's the mood around the grill? If you get a chance to have a break on the fourth, what is the I already asked to kind of the optimism you said some of that is returned? We haven't cropped decisions that need to be made. Give me a sense of what what do you think we're facing right now? What decisions do we need to make?

Mike Schulte   Well, I think there is optimism there because things do look different from as from having opportunities, especially even on the livestock. And I think that that's a lot different right now than it was certainly three or four months ago, where we were having to liquidate herds, and we didn't have hay and we didn't have places to put our livestock. Also, you know, we have grazing grain systems in Oklahoma, where we graze our wheat during the winter months. And so we didn't really have that opportunity this past year, because we really didn't have much of a wheat crop from the time of planting until we were harvesting now. So I think that given that we have had the moisture that producers are weighing the options, and they're gonna look at opportunities to take advantage of some of these markets moving forward. I think certainly on the the wheat side, it's a, it's a little bit of a challenge right now, because we have a worldwide supply of wheat and other places, and we're trying to deal with the marketing of those challenges, I think that the market is going to normalize some, and we're probably going to be where we are for a while, we have just a large influx of wheat from Eastern Europe, you know, the Ukraine, Russia, Pakistan area, India is up on their production as well as Australia. And so I think we're gonna have to, you know, work through some of that on the marketing side of things. I still keep saying, though, I think also, it may just take one major world event or one happening to shut one export market down from one of these countries, and then we're gonna see some possible price increases when that happens. That all depends on, you know, how our world leaders act and how we how we move forward with some of the challenges that we're having in Russia and Ukraine region. But I think that there are still going to be some opportunities in this marketing year for us here in the US. Once we start getting through the glut of some of these other countries with their excessive we

Paul Yeager   We will do politics next time, so we'll both get in trouble. All right, Mike, I appreciate the time. Thank you so much, Mike. Okay, thank you. My thanks to both Chad and Mike for their time as we discussed the goings on of the crops. As the calendar turns to July, specifically, the old knee high by the Fourth of July check in. New episodes come out each and every Tuesday. We hope to have you there. Thank you so much. And we'll see you next time.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai