Cyndi's Two Cents

Weather Woes

Commentary.

Summer’s official start is June 21, but someone must have forgotten to tell Mother Nature because summer’s climatic conditions kicked off a month early in much of the Midwest.  We jumped from a record cool April to a record hot May, skipping Spring weather almost entirely!

Hay-making season was earlier than usual and despite an astronomical (in my opinion) fertilizer bill, our hay crop is at least 20 – 30% less than average.  We put up both small squares and big round bales.  We do the small squares ourselves but pay a neighbor with a round baler to roll up the big ones.  He told many of his regular customers that he wouldn’t bale for them if they hadn’t fertilized.

On a positive note, the hay we made this season was harvested, tedded, raked and baled then stacked in the barns under great conditions and at the right time from the standpoint of nutritional value.  It might not be enough to get us through if the drought worsens on our farm, but it is certainly better than it would have been had we waited to make hay.

It’s not like 2012, but the earth is thirsty in my neck of the woods.  The wind is hot, dry and dusty and seems to suck the life out of everything green and growing.  We hoped for a second cutting of hay in some fields, but so far, the rain has been elusive.

Other parts of the Midwest have experienced torrential downpours.  My nephew told me that corn stalks had to be plowed then hauled away because the rain came so hard and so fast that it washed residue from crop fields across a state highway in central Illinois.  In other areas there has been wind and hail damage to farmsteads and farm fields.

Many farmers today are armed with a toolbox full of new hybrids, pesticides, herbicides, tillage equipment, the best fly control and nutritional plans for your livestock, computer programs designed for precision application of herbicides, fertilizer and pesticides.  GPS can be used for field mapping, soil sampling, farm planning, tractor guidance, crop scouting, variable rate applications, and yield mapping.  We have access to expert agronomists, ag engineers, entomologists, soil scientists, plant pathologists, climatologists, veterinarians and many other ag specialists.

Farming today is much different than it was in the 1950’s, 60’s or 70’s. The changes that have taken place in agriculture since the first half of the last century are far too many to list.  Only about 10% of farms had electricity before the Rural Electrification Act of 1936.   My grandparents talked about the “the night the lights came on” as being the most significant and positive change to life in their homes on their farms.

Despite all these tools and resources, those of us in agriculture remain at the mercy of Mother Nature.  We are unable to control the one factor that has the greatest impact on our livelihood:  Weather.