Corn Froze

[SONNY]

There was several hundred acres of corn in this area that was up and got froze off so these guys are not happy campers but that is one of the hard knocks of farming!---Just because that heater in the tractor cab felt good to them, the ground temps are still way too cold for planting field crops on a large scale! ---Also the seed companies had a short seed crop last year and I have been told that the warehouses were empty by Feb. this year!----THAT would mean seed problem to replant with and what they did plant cost $300 per bag for some of the high end varieties used around here!
Thats about it for this report on field crops at this time!

PS---the alfalfa across the road is not lookin too good either, so dont know if it would be safe to use or not!---I would be out there cutting the top off before it rains so it dont push the toxins down into the roots! thanks; sonny

[Mark / Ohio]

So far I've only seen one guy planting and that was this week. He was just a small time fellow with a small tractor and planter maybe doing about 6 row at a time at most. The soil has now dried out (until tomorrow.) Mostly a lot of breaking of the crust going on. The wet weather up until now might have been a blessing as it kept some from getting in too big of a hurry.

[Ike]

Originally Posted by Mark / Ohio

He was just a small time fellow with a small tractor and planter maybe doing about 6 row at a time at most.

When I read this, I chuckled about how things change. When I was a kid in Western Ohio, anyone planting 6 rows at a time was considered a BIG time operator. Most were using 4 row equipment and small time farmers like Dad were still using 2 row.

Ike

[Mark / Ohio]

They were not running track drive tractors back then neither.

It has changed for sure. To some degree the big guys got bigger and the small guys got smaller, retired or otherwise just gave up farming nights and weekends on top of a day job. Still have some Amish in the area though to remind us of the past.