Be careful when cursing the sun and rain
The rain has been a God-send. Soybeans, that have been long struggling, are getting the long-needed moisture. Corn has begun tasseling, and filling cobs. Hay is looking better going into the week, as better regrowth has taken a better pace. And your normal lawn mowing schedule will probably go back to its normal pace as well, whether that is good or bad. (Depends on who mows the lawn, I suppose… on a separate note: special ‘thanks’ goes out to my mom, who cuts my lawn for me.)
Rain has always been my thing. As a little kid on the dairy farm, when it rained that meant we didn’t have stuff to work on outside, so mom would pack us into the car and we made a trip to Marshfield. There we would stop at Fleet Farm for supplies for the dairy, and the mall for school clothes. To wrap up the magical afternoon mom would swing us through McDonalds for lunch, while we snuck extra french fries away from our dad on the way home. But I digress.
The rain and the sun are the building blocks of life, especially for the crops. Understandably that is an understatement, but when we talk about our region of America’s Dairyland we do have a lot to count on for sun and rainfall. Our ‘Growing Zone’ is category 4; which means that our average annual extreme minimum temperature is between minus 20 Fahrenheit and minus 35 Fahreheit, giveor- take a few chilling degrees. To put this into perspective the United States has zones 3 to 10, 10 being in the Florida pan-handle where they bare harsh low temps of 30 to 40 Fahrenheit.
The amount of heat/sunlight is very important to make our main crops (corn, soybeans, hay) reach their potential. To describe this, the ag-community uses Growing Degree Days, or GDDs/ GDU’s. It’s basically a value that comes from a mathematical equation that takes the average temperature of the day compared to the threshold temperature of our crops (40-50 Fahreheit). It’s added all up, and gives us a running total to see if we have had enough sun. In our area for corn, we are currently sitting at 119 days fewer GDDs than last year, and a whopping 472 units behind the 30-year average. Executive summary is that our overcast spring (April and May) delayed our crops because they didn’t get the heat/sunlight they needed. However, our recent heat wave has really quickened the pace of our corn and grasses in the hay fields.
But much like potato chips, too much of one thing isn’t a good thing. Rain fall has been surprisingly absent in most areas in our neighborhood. Since May we have accumulated about 13 inches of rainfall. This is lower than last year, and way-way lower than in 2019; 5 inches lower to be exact. The month of June alone has contributed to our biggest loss of precipitation this season. Last year we had 3 inches MORE rainfall for the month of June than this year. The soybeans reflected this loss of precipitation with stunted growth, especially in compacted fields from excessive tillage where the roots couldn’t go deep into the soil profile, and find spare nutrients/ moisture.
Rain and sun can be such a tricky thing; causing anxiety and praise at the same time. “It’s too damn hot, it needs to cool down”, “It’s dang wet, we need some heat”, “we need rain, it’s too dry.” Some might say that a farmer can never be happy (especially hearing this all the way through summer), but in reality, they are looking for someone to strike up a conversation with. With all that we talked about today, I know that over the next cup of coffee or minute standing in line at the grocery store, you will be ready to impress your farmer, and nonfarmer, friends.
THE SOIL
SOUND-OFF
