We're finally into the growing season where corn product companies are looking for every prime example of their product's superiority. And when they find one, they can't wait to tell the world about it. Last week, after an urgent email invite, I pulled into the ditch along a well-traveled highway to check out a corn plot gone wrong – or right, depending on who's looking at it. Remember, nobody wants the neighbors or anyone to see a disaster next to a road where everybody can see…

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You may be reading this out of pure boredom, waiting until Mother Nature finally gives you a break in her spring monsoon. Much more than usual is riding on the outcome of this year's crops. You can almost taste the sweetness of selling corn at $7-plus – unimaginable even 8 months ago. But each day of field work delay from here to mid-May will slowly begin taking away from returns on those last-planted acres. If you're a milk or beef producer, you're in an even tighter time squeeze…

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This weekend, most of the Northeast’s corn and soybeans were out of the ground. In fact, the warm, humid weather has a lot of corn fields ready to start shooting skyward. While it’s invigorating to watch (and hear?) the corn grow, getting out there and observing what’s happening throughout the fields is hugely important. That’s because weeds and insects also rapidly develop with the warm weather. You are your best early warning system for trouble. And the sooner you…

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  This may not be about what you think it’s about. (This Web site is an agricultural one, and fairly conservative of thought.) But read on.   With the rapid escalation of “Spring Fever”, young men’s fancy turns to mud racing and older men’s fixate on planting. The passion of this season, the farmer’s zeal, the push to see new crop push up is not unlike flipping on a lightning-speed browser or downing a quart of Red Bull. The mental rush of spring and its intoxicating fuel…

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In September’s American Ag, we reported that much of the Northeast badly needed at least a couple weeks of warm, sunny weather. And the last couple weeks of warm sunny weather have been a God-send to just about all farmers, not just those “reving” their silage chopper engines. That’s the bottom line of roadside conversations I’ve had with farmers while road-running for the magazine.   Farmers in Vermont and Massachusetts tell us that their crop progress for corn and vegetables are still…

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After a five-day trip into the Midwest for a family reunion, I’m back at my computer with much to report. First and foremost, I’d have to say that Northeast farmers have been blessed with good weather this spring – and Midwest farmers haven’t. That’s bound to push up corn, soybean and wheat prices this summer.    Much of the corn that I saw from the mid-sections of Ohio to western Iowa was at least two weeks behind the garden spots of southeast Pennsylvania, the Hudson Valley and western New…

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Hurricane Hanna may be heading up the East Coast. But any deluge will be too late to help most crops crying “Water! Please! Water!”   In early August, I suggested that we’d get a September surprise with USDA’s upcoming crop report. I suggested that corn and soybean yields might higher than August’s report. That was before the August rains – the ones that didn’t fall.   Except for one good rain, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Delaware were staring at a record low rainfall for August. That’s…

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As oil prices "cheapened" (became less expensive) in early August, grain prices tumbled. You didn't think $8 corn and $16 soybeans would go on forever, did ya?   USDA's Aug. 12 crop report brought more bad news for cash grain sellers and good news for those in need of feed. But I'm betting that America's corn and soybean growers will produce even bigger crops of both - especially corn.   No, I haven't been sniffing too much ethanol. As I report in September's American Agriculturist, much of…

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