CCSP -No till Farm
Greetings,
It looks as if crop maturity on corn and beans will be no problem this year, however with yesterday's rain, harvesting will be a few days. In fact I don't think there will be a combine operating within 200 miles of here this weekend. We had 2.32 inches at the farm, the local Forman area reports mostly 2 inches. This is on already wet ground so it is starting to look like last year. At least the corn will be dry. People are starting to combine beans, and I have heard of some corn. Markets have been interesting with local corn over $4 and beans over $10. The corn on CCSP looks good, but variable. Planting just before the cold snap was not the best, but I think the wet ground is showing up more. I have a variety trial that was planted after the cold snap so we will see how that turns out compared to the plots that were planted earlier.
The winter wheat is all planted. We just got that in before rain so moisture to germinate will not be an issue. Planting went very well. Some plots were wet and after the rain have water standing so we really hope we can get some drying weather.
The cover crops are doing well. It looks to me like adding some nitrogen really improves the growth. Time will tell if the expense pays out.
Have a good week.
Kelly Cooper- farm manager
Cocktail cover crop, Soybeans, Newly seeded Winter Wheat, Radish planted in 30 rows for bio-strip till corn in 2011, NDSU Winter Wheat Variety trial on farm, seeded Sept 21.
click on thumbnails for a larger picture.