Weather continues to delay crop progress

May 29, 2019

National soybean emergence is 33 percent behind last year’s progress

By Diego Flammini
Staff Writer
Farms.com

U.S. producers continue to face cool and wet conditions during the 2019 planting season.

Farmers have only planted 58 percent of the national corn crop, the USDA’s Crop Progress report said on May 28. Corn emergence sits at 32 percent. Progress in both categories is more than 30 percent behind last year’s figures.

The top factor for the delays is weather, said Sarah Hastings, a corn and soybean farmer from Sidney, Ill.

“The issues we’re dealing with right now are 100 percent related to the weather,” she told Farms.com. “The crops can’t emerge if they’re not planted and we can’t plant them if it keeps raining like this.

“It basically has started raining and never stopped. You get some sunny breaks and breezy days to do some work in a tiny window, but at basically we’re just working between rains.”

At this time last year, Illinois farmers were done planting, Hastings said.

Weather is also preventing soybean growers from getting their crops planted.

U.S. soybeans are only 29 percent planted and 11 percent emerged, the USDA’s report said. Like corn, both figures are more than 30 percent behind 2018’s progress.

Until the weather improves, farmers can’t do much, said Allen Armstrong, a farmer from South Charleston, Ohio.

“We’re like everyone else and we’re very behind on soybean planting,” he told Farms.com. “We have a few that are trying to poke out but, until they get some sunshine and happiness, neither the crop or us as farmers can do a whole lot.”

Continued delays could have implications for crop insurance.

Farmers need to have their crops planted by certain dates to qualify for some insurance programs, Hastings said.

“In my area, you can’t insure the crop after June 5,” she said. “You start to lose insurability and the insurance companies won’t insure a crop that doesn’t have a chance to reach its full potential.

“Farmers are already feeling the pinch between the stock market and trade wars, too. It’s pretty bleak right now.”

Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.