2012
LOGAN CO
UNTY FARM OUTLOOK MAGAZINE. LINCOLN DAILY NEWS.com October 23, 2012
6
2012:
A complicated, frustrating year
I
n a normal, typical production
year, it can be said that the “yield
is what comes in from the field.”
But this was far from a normal or typical
corn production year.
Germination rains came at the right time
and not in overwhelming amounts, so there
was little or no early puddling or ponding to
cause replants. In fact, the early part of the
season seemed to be
cause for celebration,
until the rains stopped
in early June and the
heating began in the
first part of July. The
earlier
celebratory
attitudes turned to
bitter
pessimism
when the high heat
continued into August.
Withering cornfields throughout the
county were not a pretty sight. Some
despaired, many prayed. One operator who
shall remain nameless remarked that given
the dire circumstances, he had doubts their
operation would be in business for the 2013
production year.
Drought was the word on everyone’s
tongue. There was a three-week period in
late June through mid-July when no rainfall
at all was reported in Logan County. Then,
when rains returned, they were in strips and
spots.
Some corn on high ridges withered and
died. Weather radar showed rains north of
Logan County and south of Logan County,
but rains approaching from the west
evaporated when they reached the Illinois
River valley. Conditions were reminiscent of
the drought of 1988.
Some corn that
did not get rain for
pollination failed to
even produce ears. In
western Logan County
where there is more
sand in the soil, some
fields were evaluated
early,
insurance
claims paid, and the
non-producing corn
was mowed to the
ground. The USDA and University of Illinois
Extensionadvertisedcourses,presentations
and essays available to producers to turn
ear-less cornstalks into silage for animal
feed to gain some cash from low-producing
fields. Those were some of the extremes.
Drought-tolerant hybrids performed
surprisingly well and remained alive when
most of us watching the weather and the
crops thought they should have withered
and died. Both Allen Shew of Chestervale
Elevator and John Fulton at the Logan