A farmer plants a no-till field along County Road 750 West near Frankton recently. Area farmers are ahead of schedule in getting their crops in the ground this spring. Staff photo by John P. Cleary
ANDERSON — Despite being a little cold, the weather has mostly cooperated this spring and planting is off to a strong start, but falling commodity prices threaten farmers’ profits.
“There’s been dry enough conditions to get quite a bit of work done,” said local farmer Brian Bays.
The USDA’s report for the week ending on May 3 showed 33% of corn and 22% of soybeans have been planted. That’s ahead of the five-year average and a lot better than last year, when only 3% of corn and 1% of beans had been planted at this point.
While a lot of corn and beans have been planted, cold soil means it’s been slow to emerge, which could be a good thing with a freeze in the forecast for Saturday.
Bays explained the corn crop should be fine since the growth point stays below the soil for the first few weeks. But emergent soybeans could be damaged since the growth point is at the top of the plant.
“There are some beans trying to come through the surface that have emerged so that could be an unpleasant Saturday morning if their forecast is correct,” said Bays.
Tony Bailey expected to have his corn planted and half his beans in the ground by Wednesday evening.
“It (frost) won’t probably bother anything I’ve got because I don’t have anything up,” said Bailey.
“We need some warm weather which should be coming next week,” he added, “and then hopefully that trend will stay with us.”
Of greater concern right now are commodity prices which have dropped sharply since March and the beginning of stay-at-home orders to stop the spread of COVID-19.
Bays said the pandemic hasn’t effected their supply chain as far as getting what they need to plant, but has negatively impacted demand for grain.
“We’ve probably dropped almost 25% on the price of corn since this started,” said Bays.
May corn closed at $3.19 on Friday. Soybeans have also been negatively impacted, but not as severely, down about 15%, Bays estimated.
“We weren’t getting rich at the levels that we were at,” Bailey said. “We will hopefully break even this year.”
“I just hope that we can all sustain our patience and our hope to get through it,” Bays said. “There are a lot of struggling businesses out there, so we’re all in this together. It’s just going to be a tough time for a while. Farmers are eternally optimistic. We always think it’s going to be better.”
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