Sixth state in a 12-state tour
By Andrea Gal
Managing Editor, Integrated Media
Farms.com
The Farms.com Risk Management team toured Nebraska on July 1 as the fifth annual U.S. Corn Belt Crop Tour continues across the American Midwest.
Moe Agostino, Farms.com Risk Management chief commodity strategist, explained that the state received “too much” rain in May, which “delayed some of the planting … by one or two weeks.”
Noah Jacobson, a farmer from Hickman, Nebraska, said the moisture affected planting – particularly of soybeans. “You could plant maybe 75 per cent of a farm and then you’d have to come back in and spot stuff in. That’s been pretty much the normal thing around here the last two years.”
Other farmers put “some steel to their ground to try to dry it out,” according to Jacobson.
More recently, however, conditions are turning dry. Jacobson’s farm only received “1.5 (inches) of rain in the last five weeks – and that was in one event.” And his area had “19-plus days of over 90 degree (temperatures), which is the third-highest record of 90-degree days for southeast Nebraska.”
Much of the corn is a week or two from tasseling. A few fields are further along, with the plants “creating some small ears,” according to Agostino. In terms of the soybeans, they “still have a long way to go before pod fill.”
Agostino ranked the Nebraska crops at 6.5 or 7 out of 10. “There is still a lot of potential,” he said.
Be sure to check back daily as more videos from the tour are posted. The next stop on the tour is South Dakota.
Use the hashtag #cornbelt16 to follow the tour on social media.