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Indiana farmer says margins are too tight to make poor planting decisions

Farmers are facing another year with tight margins and a west-central Indiana farmer says making mistakes at planting could be costly.

Kevin Cox says he can’t afford to plant in poor field conditions.  “Most of the economists right now and most of the bankers are telling you as much as $140 to $150.00 an acre hit on corn this year,” he says.  “And $40 to $50.00 an acre hit on beans in the negative margins this year. The prospect isn’t very good.”

He tells Brownfield their intentions were to plant all their soybeans early, but not too early. “In March, we were able to get the anhydrous on,” he says. “I’ve been itching to get in the field and was waiting on the calendar. You know, March is pretty early. So, I was a little concerned about trying to plant that early and didn’t want to get caught in a frost.”

Cox said then, the calendar turned to April. “We were going to jump in here and start no-tilling on the best conditions I’ve ever had to start with,” he says.  “And then in the last two weeks we got, like 12 to 13 inches of rain.  It has just been raining and raining and raining.”

He says he had the planter out ready to go on Monday, but after looking at this week’s weather forecast, he decided to hold off for another day.

AUDIO: Indiana farmer Kevin Cox