This is gonna hurt

80 mph wind. Corn is going to get hammered. I wish this year was over!!!!

Brad, that really hurts, sorry to hear that. Hopefully it won't be as bad as it sounds like. On the positive side, beautiful piece of property you got.

Sorry to see that. I could never be a rancher - farmer. It would drive me nuts over the things I could not control.
Best of luck to you.

zim

We were in the 60's today. Those miserable October showers 100 feet wide. Kansas gets the joys of our Canadian cool air. It is supposed to be 90 hear to finish off the corn and beans. Like the pioneer days before the churches were built. Storms flatten Kansas and frost come to the upper plains.

I’m up to 10 percent hail and green snap so far this year, the bright side might be if the USDA report is right you may make out pretty well with insurance. If nothing else it might help you survive for another year.

This is the last storm. 60% greensnap and hail.

I wanted the lake to fill up here it's been so low the fish winter killed, now the lake is so high they evacuated the other side of the lake and the roads are covered with water on 2 sided of me what a mess. Most water I have seen in 40 years of living here the lawn sounds like a sponge when you walk on it like you said enough is enough.

Not sure they will get the crops out and the rest of the hay cut any equipment in a field is at risk of getting buried there. They were working on the wheat harvest and had a tracked tractor with a huge tow rope standing by that was last week.

Thanks for the thoughts Wild and Zim.

The Humidity has been unbearable this summer. We are used to 15-20%. Saturday we set a record at 1:00pm with 76%. I don’t know how the guys down south do it. I can take 95*-115*, but the humidity is a killer

I wish I had a picture of the first year I farmed I had 75 percent greensnap on 147 acres out of 320 but no hail and at that time I didnt carry green snap insurance at that time, I now do.

We started carrying it 5 years ago. First year I put it on the corn it payed out over 200k good Lord was with me on that decision. Got audited for excessive loss. That was a great experience!!

I forgot to say that year combining that corn on half mile rows after 4 rounds I finally unloaded just for something different not because I was full.

Pardon my ignorance, what is green snap?
Lol I would be Haappy if our record humidity
Was 76% good luck in the storm I hope it dissipated for You.

Good luck, I hope it doesnt ruin your corn.

Look at it this way, at least you got a wheat crop, we got none, and our milo is burning up from lack of rain.

Farming sucks, im tired of it.

I’ll keep venting. So we drowned in the spring and then No rain. Dry land corn is toasted. Started chopping it last week. Appraisal was 10 bushel to the acre.

Dad is an adjuster for FMH now so we do have a better understanding of how things work, we went to 0 deductible it cost but it’s worth it. One thing we do is conflict of interest which is basically an audit every year which is nice because once it is done thats it they can’t go back and do the audit again.

Sounds like a good idea. I got audited last year for excessive yields. I didn’t mind that one:)

Looks like good silage except for not having many bushels in it. NE wildlife green snap is when the corn plant breaks at the node, if it breaks in between it falls under wind damage which we do carry, insurance will probably break me but I know I would be broke if I didn’t carry it.

Thanks bacatrapper. You guys have had a terrible year. Makes me feel bad for complaining. Won’t be long before we can put it behind us, and lower the hammer on some yotes. I’m seeing lots of pups out here. Rabbit and field rat numbers are crazy, so I should have a good haul. My wife is already tiered of hearing about it. She just rolls her eyes every time I say something about it. Which is 10 times a day:) probably should put a lid on it! How do things look out there?

Lots of coyotes here too, but im thinking they might not be worth as much as last year, so gonna hit the skunks and bobcats this year hard too..........dont feel bad about complaining its the farmer way. Yea we have had a badbad year, good thing we dont borrow money to farm, and we have cows or wed be toast.

Good luck! I hope to see you guys at the Colorado sale. I almost have the beaver grease off my fingers from flipping 300 of those wood chippers 4 times. Great time and I learned a lot.

It is when storms break corn stalks... the green stalks SNAP

Ill see you there. Yes, it is a fun sale, and a great place to learn alot and get your hands greasy. I plan on bringing my biggest pile yet..........bills to pay and all.

I am no farmer by any means with the little 40 acres my wife and I own.
I do however have the opportunity with my profession to travel on many farms and work with many
big time farms.
Of course here in Wisconsin that usually means dairy but we work with swine and poultry producers also.
I am sorry to say but the day of the little guy with 20 cows is a thing of the past here. Wisconsin may be still be
America's Dairyland but it is supplied with folks that have anywhere on the low end of 250 milking cows to the high end of
yep, that's right of 20,000 milking cows.
We do more work now to design waste treatment, feed run off, etc. than you can believe.
Last year we were short handed and I had to put my civil engineers hat back on and do testing for concrete
and quality control for a 600 million gallon concrete lined manure lagoon. It was mid November in Wisconsin
which is not normally conducive for proper curing. With a couple concrete pumps they were pouring 400 CY per day.

Green snap usually happens before the corn tassels. It occurs when corn is growing faster than normal due to environmental conditions. Also when chemicals like Dicamba are used that make the corn brittle. Regions like Kansas are most prone because of our high winds. Newer varieties seem to be affected more than older ones. 10 years ago we didn’t even think about it

Oh yeah zim, when we were buying Holstein steers they came from a Texas calf yard that took calves from at least 4, 20000 head dairies. Not sure I’d you work in Dane county but Stacey Barr was our buyer. I was also worried your last sentence was scrambled and I thought you were having a stroke, but then things changed to the right spelling so I take it your ok.

My goodness, that storm approaching shot is tremendous, Pawnee ! Trying to imagine it in living colour, actually standing there ...you all work so hard, and endure so much .

You deserve all the best in your success through these turbulent times.

On the bright side, farming makes trapping during downward spiraling prices seem like a worthwhile endeavor.

Knew a young logger in the UP worked his tail off every day he always said if his dad was a farmer he would of run away from home! LOL

Thanks for the explanation, sorry to hear about the rough growing season.

How did you come out Pawnee?

Pawnee, how are the nitrogen levels in that low yielding drought stressed corn? When we have had issues such as that here our N levels many times were high and we had to blend the crop in with better forage or feed more grain and energy to utilized more of the N. We had a wet spring, very wet and cool along the lake, much of our silage corn was planted mid to late June instead of early May. We then got about 3 weeks of dry weather, but have had about 5 inches of timely rains over the last 2-3 weeks and we will make a so-so crop of nearly normal silage. Don't know yields as of yet as there is a long way to go and will need a normal August and a tad warmer September to get the grain portion to mature enough. That means we need some timely rains for another month, but for us this time of year is typically good about getting rain.
Our alfalfa yields are far below the norm. Some of the cover crop plantings won't be harvest ready until October for sure.

Bryce

The cornfields that I drive by look half decent so far- a bit on the dry side.

Kinda rough Bob. Silage corn was tall and really got hammered. Grain corn probably lost 10 bushel. I’ll be cross eyed trying to find rows on the chopper

Corn field that got hit a month ago. 50-60 green snap then. It’s junk now!!

Thanks Sharon. Us farmers love to complain:) if I was a banker I’d be complaining about low interest rates. Lol

N levels will be elevated, but once it insiles they are usually cut in half, and we mix it in with old crop silage. It won’t have the energy levels of good corn, but the protein will be equal to alfalfa since it was so stressed. I’ve heard you guys have a long way to go. I hope we don’t have a early freeze. I’m Long on corn as far as the markets go

Preach on brother

I know a lot of folks on this site don't believe in global warming but I think it is going on but not here to argue the point just my thoughts

Do have a rowless head for the chopper? The guy we used to hire to do our silage had a rowed head and always said he couldn’t do downed corn because of the head.

Wow Brad, that's terrible. Part of the business I guess, farming in the Heartland. Trade-offs, I suppose. The prairie is the most beautiful place in America in my opinion, so I guess the trade off for that is the storms and weather.

Yes those Kemper style heads can pick up a lot of down, broken, bent corn. We were about 5-7 weeks later than normal in planting but we are probably 3-4 weeks behind normal for much of the later corn, so we have made up quite a bit of the days we lost. We got a lot of heat units in July and early August. If we get the over 50 degree nights or 60 degree nights until mid-September we will salvage an OK crop. If that happens then quality will be normal and just lower yields so it won't be a double whammy. Right now the corn market has lost almost a dollar in the last 3-4 weeks. The USDA estimate went from 13.6 to 13.9 billion bushels with a national average of 169 instead of June projection of 165. Harvested acres of 82 million is the same as earlier with 90 million estimated to be planted. If this holds it indicates some limited exporting and usage levels if 300 million bushels drops the price 50-75 cents per bushel. Ethanol use is declining, exports look flat with the world economy slowing and the dollar high and domestic usage is up in the air as to where our economy is going over the next marketing year.

Bryce

You all work hard and deserve good returns for all you do. Farmers, ranchers, honeybees make the world go 'round. Complaining is justified !

God will let you know what you deserve most of the time, its alot less than you might think.

The lower Ark valley got it backside wiped last night, granada to syracuse. The corn and milo looked good too.

Now not so much. Good deal for the green chop boys.

Tomorrow is meant to be 100. it will stink to high heaven.

Yes Bob we do. We run Claas 960 chopper with 10 row head. It will eat the downed corn. Since the corn is tangled it doesn’t feed as smooth and some corn will come in sideways. When it enters the knife drum sideways it’s not chopped uniformly. Makes ugly silage. The worst part about it is operator fatigue. It really messes with your head as you travel through the field. After a 12-14 hour day I’m ready to be off of it. Silage harvesting is my most stressful time of the year. Lots of things going on in the cab, and lots of heavy trucks on long runs to the pile. Combined my drivers will haul 1,200-1,500 loads and travel about 12,000 miles in a 3 week time. 90% of the time on narrow dirt/sand roads. Truck drivers just got my speech last week. No rolling stops at stop signs, Slow to 35mph when meeting any vehicle on dirt roads, Yield to the loaded truck, and stay off the dang phone!! I pray every morning for a safe day, and give thanks every night when The last truck is parked.

I see my share of rolling stops of 18 wheelers. I hope you have a safe harvest.

We have 6 2-5000 cow dairies within 10 miles of my house. When corn silage season comes in earnest there are about 6-8 of those 10 row or a couple 12 row choppers running the fields. The number of packing tractors, semis, dump wagons (if wet) is amazing. Traffic routes are impacted considerably and we have a lot of rural non farm residents in our area. Our field size is increasing but we don't have the landscape as some areas do with huge fields and we have a lot of rolling terrain that makes working with all the larger equipment more of a challenge. Most dairy rations here are heavy corn silage as it is the lower cost forage per ton of dry matter to feed so these 6 dairies that feed the norm would harvest about 12,000 acres of corn silage in about 7 to 10 days which in a normal year would be about 250,000 tons. Add alfalfa and grain and water and one can see how many gallons of liquid manure that is each year as well. Late fall before freeze up is the busiest time now on our farms field wise with corn silage, planting winter wheat, corn grain, late cutting alfalfa and hauling manure.

Bryce

The worst thing is when those drivers are running their adrenaline gets going so they start to push the limits, done this myself before, and a guy just has to hope nothing happens. Also you know if you had a Krone it would cut better.

One of the largest farms I know of is quite some distance from us but when I was working as an Ag Agent we were helping recruit trucks for this farm. In one two day stretch they had 125 semis working on the farm with 75 for corn silage and 50 for hauling liquid manure. They milk 8000 and all cows are in one climate controlled barn. They are getting better about spilling at intersections which can be a huge problem as these areas can get slippery and vehicles can slide right through the intersection. Most of the larger farms now equip small trucks with water tanks, hoses, brooms and scrapers and clean up spills and the mud from field entrances. Goes along way toward community relations.

Bryce

Howd you fair thru the storm brad?

We had a real banger 2 nites ago, it hailed again, and missed our milo by a half mile. We did get 3" of rain, so we might get a crop yet.