Two years ago, scorching temperatures and a lack of rain made for one of the worst Kentucky corn crops in memory. Many growers of one of the state’s biggest crops were forced to file insurance claims to offset losses.
After a bumper crop last year, dry conditions this summer in many parts of the state have produced diminished crops for some farmers — but the unusually cool weather will likely produce an overall crop that is near normal, according to University of Kentucky grains agronomist Chad Lee.
“We’re not going to be as bad as 2012 at all, but we’re not going to be what 2013 was, either,” Lee said. “So we’ll probably fall back into the middle, maybe a little bit below middle.”
The diminished Kentucky crop comes as corn prices are the lowest they’ve been since 2010.
Corn and soybeans are the most valuable row crops in Kentucky, and combined are far more valuable than all the other planted crops combined.
Corn provided the greatest cash receipts among row crops for Kentucky farmers in 2011 and 2012 — totaling about $829 million two years ago, almost 16 percent of the total $5.28 billion in agricultural receipts that year. Last year’s numbers should be released within the next month.
Kentucky’s corn crop this year is forecast at 200 million bushels — down 18 percent from last year — with estimated yields of 138 bushels an acre, down 18.8 percent, according to federal projections released this week based on conditions Aug. 1.
Farmers in Indiana and nationally are faring better.
Indiana’s corn yield is predicted to be a record average of 179 bushels an acre — up 1 percent from last year — based on a forecast harvest of almost 1.05 billion bushels, which would be a record. Nationally, the crop is forecast at 14 billion bushels — up 1 percent from 2013 — with projected average yields of 167.4 bushels per acre, up 5 percent from 2013.
Joseph Sisk of Sisk Farms in Hopkinsville said that in early June his corn crop looked to be the best in his 15 years of farming. Then the weather dried up for about two months. Now, large sections of his cornfield have turned brown. The good news is there’s still corn in there — thanks to the cool temperatures.
“The cool weather sustained the crop much longer than it would have normally been with such a shortage of moisture,” Sisk said. If there had been 100-degree weather like two years ago, “then I think it would have been very similar to 2012. That’s going to be the saving grace. Whatever yield remains, that’s going to be the reason.”
While the conditions may have reduced his yields to something less than normal, Sisk said it is too soon to say whether he’ll be filing crop insurance claims. One of Sisk’s mostly brown fields will have near normal yields — but one-third of the potential yield was lost during the dry spell.
“It was the best corn crop I had ever touched,” Sisk said. “... And then it just slowly deteriorated.”
Statewide, UK’s Lee said the corn crop is in a wide variety of conditions.
Overall, federal crop reports estimate 19 percent of Kentucky’s corn crop is in poor or very poor condition as of Sunday, 24 percent is fair and 57 percent is good or better.
According to UK agricultural meteorologist Tom Priddy, rain in Kentucky last week was almost a half-inch above normal, while temperatures remained below normal for the sixth consecutive week.
West of Interstate 65 along the Tennessee border is where dry weather has done the most damage, Lee said.
“We’ve got some spots in the state where it was still devastation, and this rain that came in late didn’t help it a bit,” Lee said.
In western counties along the Ohio River — some of the largest for Kentucky corn production — last week’s rain came just in time to help a crop that was in increasingly dire need of it.
“It will help a lot of the corn go ahead and finish out and finish out well,” Lee said.
Source - http://www.courier-journal.com/
