2015 US Corn Belt Crop Tour: Ohio

Jun 29, 2015

First stop during 12-state tour

The 2015 US Corn Belt Crop Tour, the 4^th annual event put on by Chief Commodity Strategist Moe Agostino and the Farms.com Risk Management team, is underway and their first state visit took place in Ohio where they visited five different fields.

“As we compare this to 2014, we’re not seeing what we saw last year,” Agostino said standing among a corn field. “For every two fields that were bad last year, there were 8 to 9 that were trumping those bad fields. I think it’s reversed this year because there’s too much moisture. You’re seeing more bad than good (but) it’s early.”

The second field visited in Ohio was a soybean crop about six miles south of Attica in Crawford County.

“Finally getting some heat, but the beans have that wet feet and it looks like in some cases, farmers have had a tough time spraying as well and trying to control some weeds,” he said. “Looking average, but not as good as we saw last year in our start of the tour.”

The third field along the Ohio visit, a wheat field, is located near Wilmington, Ohio. The field showed its maturity and potential.

“It’s a really nice wheat field,” Agostino said. “Looks like we could harvest if we could only get some dry weather. We started the day with some sun but the storm has rolled in again and there’s flash flooding in this area.”

The Risk Management team stayed in the Wilmington area and visited a soybean field that looked better than the previous one.

“Looking better but this rain is going to have to stop and we need some dry conditions and some heat to help improve these plants,” he said, pointing out that some plants were in standing water.

The final Ohio field visit took place south of highway 125, near Cincinnati. The field looked good, but weather conditions will have to change for farmers to have successful yields this year.

“At this stage, I’m not liking what I see,” Agostino said. “I see more fields that are not looking so hot versus the odd decent field. There’s still a big growing season ahead of us and we still have to get through the pollination stage.”

The next stop on the Corn Belt Crop Tour is Indiana. Be sure to follow along on Twitter using the hashtag #CornBelt15.

Video: Treating Sheep For Lice!

We are treating our sheep for lice today at Ewetopia Farms. The ewes and rams have been rubbing and scratching, plus their wool is looking patchy and ragged. Itchy sheep are usually sheep with lice. So, we ran the Suffolk and Dorset breeding groups through the chutes and treated them all. This treatment will have to be done again in two weeks to make sure any eggs that hatched are destroyed too. There was a lot of moving of sheep from pen to pen around the sheep barn but by all the hopping and skipping the sheep were doing, I think they enjoyed the day immensely! We hope you do too!