HANCOCK COUNTY — Ronnie Mohr will be glad to put this farming season behind him.
“There’s nobody around living that can remember any crop year like this,” the 71-year-old Hancock County corn and soybean farmer said. “This is something I’ve never experienced.”
As harvest commences, farmers are starting to feel the effects of the uncharacteristically wet spring that pushed back planting. Corn and soybean harvests across the state are forecast to be the smallest since the drought-devastated crop of 2012.
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Mohr farms between 4,000 and 5,000 acres with his brother, two sons and nephew in north-central Hancock County. They usually start planting in April, but not this year.
“Every time I turned around, it was raining,” Mohr said.
The rain forced them to wait until May and they finished planting in late June. They planted all of their fields, except in areas where drainage was insufficient and water was standing.
“We got it all planted late, extremely late; and some of it’s in pretty sad shape,” Mohr said.
There just wasn’t enough time for many of the plants to grow, and they had a hard time breaking out of the ground, he continued, adding drowned-out spots continue to mar his fields.
Mohr said they have harvested some corn and beans so far. The yield on their earlier-planted corn is somewhat below last year’s average, and he expects that to decrease more as they get into the later-planted corn.
He suspects their soybeans were hurt by too much rain in the spring, followed by the extreme dryness that followed in August and September.
Mohr said he’s not yet sure how he expects his harvest to pan out.
“We don’t know,” he said. “Every day you put off a killing frost gives us one more day of breathing room, as far as a later crop.” He said that before a heavy frost early Friday morning.
The trade dispute between the United States and China was already hurting American agriculture, Mohr said, and this year’s weather conditions didn’t help.
“This on top of it put a lot of pressure on farmers all over,” he said.
Monty Zapf, who grows corn and soybeans in eastern Hancock County, said this was the first year he wasn’t able to get all his crops planted. He was about 100 acres shy on corn and about 60 on soybeans. Like Mohr, what he was able to plant was late as well; he finished corn on June 27 and soybeans on July 9.
“It wasn’t so much the amount of rain; it was the continual rain, the duration of it,” Zapf said.
He’s thankful for the warmth lasting into October that’s helping plants mature.
Zapf said he’s harvested one field of corn and just got started on soybeans. The couple of recent frosts have helped bring the beans around, he added.
“They’ll ripen about as fast as we can cut them,” he said.
His soybean yields have been averaging between 30 and 58 bushels per acre, he said, adding it’s highly variable and dependent on planting dates and the number of mud holes in the fields.
The U.S. Department of Agricultural Statistics Service’s Indiana Field Office forecasts the state’s 2019 soybean yield at 48 bushels per acre, down 9.5 bushels from 2018. The office forecasts total production at 258 million bushels, down 25% from last year.
Nationally, the USDA forecasts this year’s soybean production at 3.55 billion bushels, a decrease of 20% from a year ago. The forecast puts yields at an average of 46.9 bushels per acre, down almost 4 bushels from 2018. Farmers will harvest more than 75.6 million acres of soybeans, according to the forecast. That’s down 14% from a year ago.
Zapf has seen a lot of his neighbors out harvesting as well.
“Everybody’s in the field now today and will be for some time,” he said.
With good weather, he doesn’t expect to be finished harvesting until late November.
He echoed Mohr’s uncertainty about how he anticipates the harvest will work out.
“That is going to be one hard thing to figure,” he said.
The USDA forecasts the state’s corn yield at 162 bushels per acre, down 27 bushels from 2018’s yield. The forecast puts total production at 794 million bushels, down 19% from last year.
If the forecasts are realized, Indiana’s corn and soybean crops will be the smallest since 2012, when a drought scorched the state, the USDA reported in a news release.
National corn production for grain should reach 13.8 billion bushels, according to the forecast, down less than 4% from 2018. Yields are expected to average 168.4 bushels per acre, down 8 bushels from last year. The area harvested for grain is forecast at 81.8 million acres, up slightly from a year ago.
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Crop forecasts
Indiana
Corn
Yield: 162 bushels per acre (down 27 bushels from 2018)
Production: 794 million bushels (down 19% from 2018)
Soybeans
Yield: 48 bushels per acre (down 9.5 bushels from 2018)
Production: 258 million bushels (down 25% from 2018)
U.S.
Corn
Yield: 168.4 bushels per acre (down 8 bushels from 2018)
Production: 13.8 billion bushels (down less than 4% from 2018)
Soybeans
Yield: 46.9 bushels per acre (down almost 4 bushels from 2018)
Production: 3.55 billion bushels (down 20% from 2018)
Source: U.S. Department of Agriculture Statistics Service Indiana Field Office
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