The updated US Drought Monitor now puts every Indiana county in some level of drought. Parts of central, southwest and north-central Indiana are under an extreme drought and the rest of the state is suffering from severe to moderate drought conditions. HAT meteorologist Rob Wasson says some relief is on the way but those rains won’t break drought stricken areas.
For HAT Field Update farmer Jim Lochtefeld in Jay County any rains coming his way will be too little and too late for the corn crop.
“I would say it is a total loss. Most of the hills didn’t even put any ears on and leaves are pretty well all dead on up to the last leaf. Some places in the valley you’ll see it put an ear on but who knows how long it’s going to last or how well it’s going to do. For the most part I’d say rain won’t do corn any good anymore and it’s pretty well a total loss this year.”
How has the crop gotten to this point? Lochtefeld says it’s a dry spring and summer and in the last month and a half just not enough rain.
“July first we had a half inch but we probably have had a total of one inch since June first, so that just wasn’t enough to do anything. The beans are short. A good soaker now may help beans out a little bit but we lost a lot of yield potential in them also.”
This week Purdue has reminded producers about resources to help determine if they should chop drought damaged corn for livestock feed. Lochtefeld won’t be going that direction.
“No, I’ve heard some people talk about chopping it but right now there’s no dairy in our area so we’re talking about just taking what we can get because we need the corn because I feed chickens. So we’ll take whatever we can get and go from there.”[audio:https://www.hoosieragtoday.com//wp-content/uploads//2012/07/Corn-a-total-loss.mp3|titles=Corn a total loss]
Hear more in the HAT Field Update at the Agronomy page, sponsored by Advanced Ag Solutions.