Farms.com Corn Belt Crop Tour wrap-up event: Part II

Jul 15, 2015

Moe Agostino breaks down his findings

After 12 states and thousands of miles traveled, the 4^th annual Farms.com Corn Belt Crop Tour wrapped up with an event held at Penta Tillage in Glencoe, Ontario.

About a hundred farmers attended the event, which featured exhibitors showing new products aimed at helping farmers increase yield, discussions on drone technology and where it’s headed, and a summary of the tour’s findings, delivered by Farms.com Chief Commodity Strategist Moe Agostino.

“Too much moisture is becoming too much of a good thing,” Agostino said. “Rain made grain last year and a month ago but that moisture is doing too much damage to some of the bigger states like Iowa, Indiana, Illinois and Ohio.”

Agostino ranked the states from best to worst in terms of possible yield forecast.

Rank	State	Yield Forecast
1	Nebraska	Average - Above Average
2	Wisconsin	Average
3	Minnesota	Average
4	Kansas	Average
5	Missouri	Average
6	South Dakota	Average
7	Michigan	Average - Below Average
8	North Dakota	Average - Below Average
9	Ohio	Below Average
10	Iowa	Below Average
11	Illinois	Below Average
12	Indiana	Below Average

While excessive rain is causing a bulk of the issues in some of the states, the wildfires in Canada are too.

“They were creating a haze in the horizon, blocking the sun and lowering the growing degree days,” he said.

Agostino said that as a result of the damage done by the rains, commodity prices could be expected to rise.

Join the conversation and tell us your thoughts about the Corn Belt Crop Tour’s findings. Will you have to change any of your future plans as a result?

Video: Cleaning Sheep Barns & Setting Up Chutes

Indoor sheep farming in winter at pre-lambing time requires that, at Ewetopia Farms, we need to clean out the barns and manure in order to keep the sheep pens clean, dry and fresh for the pregnant ewes to stay healthy while indoors in confinement. In today’s vlog, we put fresh bedding into all of the barns and we remove manure from the first groups of ewes due to lamb so that they are all ready for lambs being born in the next few days. Also, in preparation for lambing, we moved one of the sorting chutes to the Coveralls with the replacement ewe lambs. This allows us to do sorting and vaccines more easily with them while the barnyard is snow covered and hard to move sheep safely around in. Additionally, it frees up space for the second groups of pregnant ewes where the chute was initially.