2015 Corn Belt Crop Tour begins Friday

Jun 24, 2015

12 states will be visited

The best way for farmers to gauge how crops in other parts of the United States are performing and anticipate any future actions would be to visit the fields themselves.

Farmers are much too busy for that, so that’s where Farms.com comes in.

From Friday, June 26^th to Saturday, July 11^th, Moe Agostino, Chief Commodity Strategist for Farms.com Risk Management and his team will take part in the 4^th annual U.S. Corn Belt Crop Tour.

The three-week tour will visit 12 U.S. states: Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Michigan.

“The 2015 4^th annual U.S. Corn Belt Crop Tour is unlike any other Midwest crop tour and its main objective is not to count corn kernels in the middle of August,” said Agostino. “But rather, to try and anticipate the size of the corn and soybean crops early in turn to help the farmer anticipate where prices are headed.”

Corn field

During the tour, Agostino will answer some of the burning questions farmers have, including if all the corn and soybean acres have been planted after the wettest May in 121 years.

While in each state, Agostino will interview farmers and provide first-hand analysis of the successes and challenges facing this year’s crop. A video will then be posted online for future access.

There will be two end-of-tour events where farmers can network and sit in on speaker sessions.

The first will take place Tuesday, July 7^th in Williamsburg, Iowa at the Kinze Innovation Center. The second will happen at the Penta Tillage Plant in Glencoe, Ontario on Tuesday, July 14^th.

On Monday, July 13^th, a video will be posted summarizing Agostino’s findings and opinions going forward.

Tell us the kinds of things you’d like to see come out of the U.S. Corn Belt Crop Tour. What questions would you like answered?

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!