At the end of April, 2019, Trent Brandenburg has only 100 acres of corn planted. He is usually nearly done with planting at this time of year. "It'd be different if I was the only farmer in Illinois who didn't have a crop in," Trent observed. "I've planted corn in May before and it did fine."
Trent Brandenburg is not happy about the prospect of "a couple more inches" of rain this week. The soil is already too wet to work, he noted, but there is no standing water. "If it warms up, it will dry out fast," he observed. So "it's too soon to tell." Trent does not expect to plant anything before April tenth "at the earliest."
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.
Trent Brandenburg is very happy to look back on a crop year that was much better than expected. A long stretch of wet weather during planting time made Trent plant his soybeans before his corn because some cornfields were too wet to work. As the season progressed, a remarkable series of almost perfectly-spaced rains caused corn ear-fill and soybean pod-fill to exceed early-season predictions. Trent's yields were very good, but not quite record-level.
Trent Brandenburg is happy with his soybean crop this year, "the yield is far surpassing what I expected, now if only we can get the prices up." Trent harvested a about 200 acres of corn and decided it was too wet (22% moisture) so he started on his soybeans.
Trent Brandenburg is happy with his corn and soybean crops so far. The corn is fully pollinated and ear fill is underway. Trent wants more rain to get the test weight of the corn kernels up.
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Trent Brandenburg started planting corn this morning, April 23, 2018. [...]
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Trent Brandenburg does not foresee any big corn and soybean market moves upward in 2018. He believes careful management to maximize yields will provide enough cash flow to maintain most farm businesses. A combination of low yields and lower prices will be challenging for operators paying very high cash rents.