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Rainfall in early May and late April has delayed spring planting for many corn farmers, and few soybeans have been planted in Clark and Champaign counties or statewide.
The longer the delay, the costlier it can be, Clark County farmer Bill Agle said.
He’s been able to get most of his corn and a little more than half of his soybeans in the ground this spring, but said he’s been lucky.
“We were fortunate,”Agle said. “We were able to plant all our corn the week of April 19 to 25 and we had a little bit of it that was hit by frost last week. But I don’t think it was bad enough it will kill it, I think it will grow back.”
The rainfall in April was below average — 2.95 inches compared to the 3.96 average — but the timing of the rain in the last part of the month and in May, combined with cool temperatures, has caused problems for Ohio farmers waiting to get into their fields.
Statewide survey results by the U.S. Department of Agriculture show 30 percent of corn crops have been planted in Ohio compared to 8 percent in soybeans.
The low percentage is a point of concern for some farmers. Sam Custer, an Ohio State extension agent in Darke County, said yields per acre drop the later crops are planted. The lower the yield, the less cash in a farmer’s pocket at the end of the year.
“Some farmers use May 10 as the day for corn planting. They say each day past that leads to one bushel an acre lost per day,” Custer said.
The food and agriculture industry contributed 11.7 percent, or $105 billion, of Ohio’s total economic output of $898.7 billion in 2014, according to the state’s Department of Agriculture.
Cold temperatures have also been a concern for Jason Bishop, a third generation farmer in Clark County who grows corn, wheat and soybeans on about 1,500 acres in western German and eastern Pike Twps.
He estimated his family has managed to get about 40 percent of their crops in the ground so far this spring. The soybeans are particularly vulnerable to the cold weather, Bishop said.
“Our biggest concern to date is probably the cool, cold nights and the scattered frost,” Bishop said. “It was all over some of this stuff the other morning and it certainly leaves you with an uneasy feeling, just as it would for plant owners and gardeners.”
There have been years when local farmers have planted crops even later, so Bishop said there is likely still some leeway as long as the weather breaks.
“We have had years in the past where we have planted this late or later and everything has turned out very, very well so we’re not too awful nervous just yet,” he said.
Mother Nature may not give Thompson and others a break this week.
Rain is predicted today and scattered showers on Saturday, according to WHIO-TV meteorologist McCall Vrydaghs.
Despite the dreary weather conditions, farmers received good news last week. The USDA lowered its world soybean production forecast due to a lower-than-expected soybean crop in South America, floods in Argentina and dry weather in Brazil.
In the report, the USDA said inventories of the oilseeds would drop by 24 percent, due partly to increased export demand. The report instantly drove up prices of soybeans by 50 cents.
Soybean futures rose so sharply on the Chicago Board of Trade that they hit the trading limit imposed by the exchange. They ended the day up 5.6 percent at $10.84 a bushel, gains that left them up 25 percent this year.
The USDA said producers are expected to grow a record 14.43 billion bushels of corn and 3.8 billion bushels of soybeans, which would be the third-best crop ever.
Farmers use their best judgment every year, Agle said, but it’s always a bit of a gamble despite several advances in technology in agriculture in recent years.
“We’ve got all kinds of amazing things that have made agriculture very productive but Mother Nature is still in charge and if she doesn’t give us the right kind of weather it doesn’t really matter what we do,” Agle said. “We can only do so much and after that it’s in Mother Nature’s hands.”
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