When rains covered the state the third week of April, some with lots of acres to plant got jittery. Their grandpa would probably think they had lost their minds. When grandpa or great grandpa farmed, late April was for hauling manure, maybe plowing. Planting corn? You had to be kidding. The oak leaves weren't as big as squirrel ears yet! And planting soybeans? Call the men in the white coats! Even if your grandpa was more progressive, odds are he wouldn't dream of planting…

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Farmers who planted corn on March 26 last year looked out their office windows this year and saw three to 10 inches of snow on the ground in many parts of Indiana. That didn't stop them from working on their corn planter in the shop that day, because they know it wouldn't be around long. Indeed, by the weekend Frosty has melted away until next year. We hope. "Do you think we've seen our last snow this year?" one caller asked me late last week. I gave the normal…

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Part of my job is going to meetings, especially this time of year. It's one way I keep current with what farmers are thinking and what industry and Extension believes are hot topics. I've been to my share of meetings this winter, and my waistline, already big enough, is even bigger now. The best way to get people NOT to come back to your meeting is to have bad food! Even so, food isn't why I go to meetings, but it's an added perk. At about every meeting there's been…

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Three meetings were on my schedule within a week's time recently. One was a Precision Planting workshop at Bruce Weibel's farm near Remington. Ken Sauder of Precision Planting spent three hours in a special tricked-out semi-trailer that looks like a showroom demonstrating how a change here and a change there in your planting operation can add up to real efficiency, more yield and more profit. The trailer was nearly full for a morning session and afternoon session. A big steak…

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If it's early in the week after Thanksgiving when you're reading this, you're probably still finishing up the Thanksgiving leftovers. Cold turkey sandwiches are good, but I prefer heating it up in the microwave. Maybe there's a little bit of gravy left to pour over it, or maybe some cranberry sauce. Those are all winning combinations in my book. Thanksgiving leftovers aren't the only things you likely need to take care of in 2012 before this notorious year passes into…

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Right now you have to look for it. The cover crops are still coming up, and may be hard to distinguish from young corn sprouting from grain left in the field. It was a tough year to harvest corn, and it only takes a small amount of grain sprouting to make a field look green this time of year. Soon that will be gone courtesy of Jack Frost, if it isn't already. What will be left if it's green will be cover crops. You're not going to find them on every farm. But from all indications you're going…

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If you didn't want to take risk, face hardship and find yourself making hard decisions, you wouldn't be a farmer. If you're reading this, you're connected to agriculture in at least some way. In 2012, thanks to the topsy-turvy, notorious growing season, you will make a lot of decisions, even if you were one of the lucky producers who got rain and a decent crop. There are more that didn't get rain in Indiana than those that did. Decisions are going to come at you one after the other, from this…

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My mother didn't name me Thomas for nothing. Just like doubting Thomas, the disciple in the bible, I have to see the scars before I believe, at least sometimes. Once I believe, I can be an avid supporter, but I have to believe first. That's why I have earned nicknames like 'doubting Thomas,' 'pessimist; stick- in- the mud and on the list goes. All I think I'm doing is being a realist- trying to see the other side, trying to determine if the glass is half empty or half full. Maybe eternal…

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Unless you lived in the Snow Belt, you might have thought you slept form fall until spring. And even then, if you lived near the late around South Bend, you only shoveled about half as much as normal. When you woke from your Rip Van Winkle nap, the calendar said mid-March, but it was mid-80's, setting records nearly every day. Some sanity returned but it remained above normal in April, just not so crazily above normal. Bu the die was cast. Plants and insects that rely on heat units for…

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I followed the directions to Gen Schmidt's house to a 'T'. It's about a three-hour drive form my place, so I don't drive in that country every day. But I was on the county road I knew I was supposed to be on. Suddenly I see this 'road closed ahead ' sign. That's never a good indication that things are going to turn out well. Not knowing exactly how far up the road he lives, I kept going. Sure enough, a few feet before a railroad track, with nowhere to run left or right, were two road closed…

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