Need More Cold Weather, Warmer Markets
Trent Brandenburg wants more cold weather to freeze the soil deeper and kill more overwintering insects. “We are having too many 40-degree days,” he observed. Trent noted, “Not much grain is moving,” due to lower market pricing. “Eventually, the owner has to be the seller,” Trent said, meaning grain being held by growers will come on to the market eventually.
Except for a few days of bitter cold, January has been relatively warm and wet. Measurable rainfall most days will eventually move through the frost layer and recharge the subsoil. The Illinois subsoil moisture measurements at Champaign at the 4-inch, 12-inch, and 20-inch levels have all returned to their highs of last Spring’s rainy spell from the serious drought conditions of August and September 2023.
More from The Field Report
Wild And Windy Winter Weekend
Trent Brandenburg and family endured a near miss yesterday as a tornado touched down a few miles from their home place. Tornadoes are a rare occurrence in December, but a "bomb cyclone" ripped through central Illinois yesterday. Houses were unroofed [...]
Dry Weather Speeds Harvest
Trent Brandenburg is trying to get his field work done "before it rains". Much of the area Trent farms is in "extreme drought" according to the Illinois Drought Monitor https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/CurrentMap/StateDroughtMonitor.aspx?IL map, which is updated every Thursday. The very dry soil [...]
In a Drought, but Corn is Too Wet to Harvest
The current Illinois drought map (11 September) shows severe drought in the northern 40% of Piatt County and moderate drought in the rest of Piatt and adjacent areas of neighboring counties. Trent Brandenburg has barely started harvesting because his corn [...]