Eastern Corn Belt Facing Major Planting Delays In Wake Of Rainy Spring - Reuters

[hatrack]

OPHIR TOWNSHIP - Farmer Monty Whipple held the problem of the eastern US corn belt in the palm of his hand: a ball of mud, densely compacted. His nearly 400-acre farm, about 90 miles southwest of Chicago in LaSalle County, was filled with mud.

Several fields less than a mile down the country road had as much as a foot of standing water. Farmers in the Midwest prefer to have their corn crop planted by now. The rule of thumb is that for each day planted after May 15, a bushel of corn is lost per acre. But a tractor in the mud will either get stuck or compress the soil enough to prevent seeds from setting.

"In the back of your mind you're thinking, 'If I don't plant it today, it's going to be another week'," Whipple, 58, said during an interview last week.

EDIT

In the west, 81 percent of Iowa's crop was in the ground as of last week. In the east, only 10 percent of Illinois' corn had been planted, 11 percent in Indiana, 22 percent in Ohio, according to the US Agriculture Department. Frequent and heavy rains have slowed progress this spring. Farmers in the eastern Corn Belt now face smaller corn yields or the option of planting faster-growing soybeans instead.

EDIT

http://planetark.org/enviro-news/item/52945

[phantom power]

1. Do you remember how we used to be assured...

that this new development of heavy rains interspersed with dry spells was No Big Deal, because it all averages out to about the same amount of water! And when some people pointed out that this might not work out so well, we were clearly being melodramatic because ha! ha! DFH!

[hatrack]

2. One of the handiest equations in agriculture . . .

Subtract one bushel per acre for each day after May 15th.

Good thing this "climate change" thing won't affect our ability to grow food, huh?

:eyes:

[phantom power]

3. We've also been assured that only undeveloped nations depend on agriculture

so I guess we lucked out there.
:eyes:

[NMDemDist2]

4. the same is true in E. WA state

a major wheat and lentils producing area