With the weather changing to a much warmer and dryer trend for at least the next week or so, the crops are going to go through some major changes.

Growth will be rapid.

Plants will be stressed.

Roots will be driven to grow deeper.

We will soon find out how much compaction is there from a planting season that continually pushed the limits of the ground being fit. I think it will be a coin toss as far as to whether the weather is a benefit.

When you drive past fields, you can see corn that has not yet reached nutrients pushed deeper into the soil profile. Maybe some root growth will be good. But at the same time, a lot of the crop is ready to set maximum ear size, so stress right now isn’t really that desirable.

The wheat crop continues to be ahead of ‘normal’. I’m heading out this morning to take a look. We might be looking at an irrigation trip, or we may be deciding on defoliation to speed us toward harvest. I’m not sure we will need to defoliate, given the heat that is coming. Regardless, it appears double-crop beans will go in the ground a couple weeks earlier than ‘normal’.

One nice thing about the dryer weather is we were able to start rock picking this week. We actually had high school students asking my kids when we were going to start. Weather has been great this week and the kid have already picked more than 100 acres.

Related:Check that box! Planting 2024 is done.

The fields this year are not nearly as thick with rocks as last year, but the season will also be shorter, maybe another week or 10 days before corn gets too tall. My mom coordinates the crew and provides snacks as dad and I are usually tending to other jobs. Matt has the task of driving the crew and keeping the kids on track.