Week ending July 17th...

Mowing around the soybeans at the Williamsville farm.

An aerial view of the west fields of our Chapin farm.

Drowned out spots on one of our fields around Ashland.

Looking south on the Williamsville soybeans.

Looking west at the Elkhart 160.

More mowing and grain hauling this week at the farm. It has now been three weeks since any significant rainfall on any of our farms and the crops are beginning to show it. To some it is funny how farmers can go from wanting the rain to stop to now asking for more. Since we received an abundance of rain early the roots of our corn and soybeans did not have to grow deep in the soil to access moisture. Now that the soils are quickly drying out, the roots are in dry soil and cannot grow down to the moisture; causing stress to the plants.

This past week we had the opportunity to go up in a plane and scout from above. The trip was very interesting. We saw plenty of drowned out spots in both corn and soybeans, a few acres or strips of greensnapped corn, and many acres of nitrogen deprived corn. A few of our fields have numerous drowned out spots. I posted pictures of these fields not so you would think we are poor farmers, but so that you understand what the crops in our general area look like. These are the most severe pictures, but for us this will not be a bumper crop. It seems as though the traders up in Chicago are starting to understand some of the troubles with the 2010 crops as the markets have jumped drastically this past week.