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“Ponds are gonna be ponds.”

Home» The Field Report » “Ponds are gonna be ponds.”

The Field Report

Federal Shutdown Muddies Ag Markets

January 21, 2019

With the central Illinois prairie covered with snow, Trent sat down in his warm office to look back and ahead. 2018 “was a decent year, but not a record-breaker. We had good weather and good production, but the markets were not friendly.” Trent continued by observing that the federal government shutdown has stopped USDA crop reports so the markets have no current information about final yield figures, export sales, status of various inventories, and similar information which ordinarily moves the market. Without the current reports, the markets are in a holding pattern, unsure of direction.

July 2014 Farm Report

Brandenburg Farm Report July 2014Plenty of Rain in June & July

With twice as much rain in June as last year, and surpassing the average July total rainfall by the 15th this year, Trent knows it’s wet. He has not yet seen any crop disease problems from the wet fields. “The corn looks good,” he said, later expressing some concern about his soybeans because the cool nights are not helping bean growth.

Beans Standing in Water

Trent would prefer a dry July for disease suppression followed by more moisture in August for pod fill. He still hasn’t seen any mold in his soybean field scouting. “Ponds are gonna be ponds,” he remarked about the wet spots, some of which have stayed wet several weeks.

“You usually never have both price and yield [in the same year]. This year we have yield,” Trent observed in a blunt summary of the down markets. The continuing reports of bigger yields have caused the most consecutive grain market “down days” since the 1970s. Trent follows the prices closely in developing his marketing strategies.

21st Century Farming with Traditional Values
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