ALBIA — Paul Belzer has seen farmers being busy this spring.
However, he hasn’t been busy planting or doing fieldwork this year in South Central Iowa.
Belzer says his family, who also runs Belzer Equipment here in Monroe County, has been busy doing work on tractors.
He says farmers have been coming in to get parts to fix a piece of equipment when they have the time or to avoid a breakdown during delayed planting.
However, Belzer is in the same situation as many other farmers in the area. He says they have not been able to get any fieldwork done this spring.
“We haven’t done anything,” he says.
Belzer says since the snow melt, it has rained every few days.
The soils in the area also are clay based that retain moisture, he notes.
That means the soils have never dried out to allow fieldwork and planting to be done.
Most corn planted in NW Iowa:
We are done planting our non-organic corn, but have not planted any organic corn yet. Most of the corn in our area went in last week. We had four really good planting days. There is no emergence yet, but we could see some if it stays warm. I have not heard of any beans being planted yet.
Source: Iowa Farmer Today
I believe I noted that I had spoken to an Iowa farmer recently and was astounded to hear that not only was the corn not yet planted, the only field he had managed to sow in oats was washed away the next day by another rainstorm. Per the Iowa State University Extension office “Nearly two-thirds of Iowa’s land surface (~23 million of 36 million acres) is annually dedicated to production of corn or soybean. ”
So why am I interested in Iowa’s weather? Because, even as a hobby livestock producer, my costs depend on costs of feed. Iowa is the largest producer of corn and soybeans.
Iowa has retained its title as the nation’s top corn and soybean producer. The state’s farmers produced 2.368 billion bushels of corn and 439 million bu. of soybeans.
That compares with Illinois farmers who produced the second largest crop at 2.284 billion bu. of corn and 350 million bu. of soybeans, according to USDA’s annual crop production report released this past week.
USDA officials said that U.S. farmers produced 13.074 billion bu. of corn and 2.585 billion bu. of soybeans in 2007.
Looks like feed prices will remain high over the next year.
