Crop watching week two - weatherman woes

Todd Easton Coles County May 7 2010: A line from a popular song goes “the waiting is the hardest part” and in the spring for farmers that is especially true. A highly varied amount of rainfall hit the area over the weekend (1st & 2nd) but because of good drying weather and anxiety to get some work done sprayers once again hit the field on Tuesday followed by planters and toolbars on Wednesday. Some of the motivation seems to come from the weatherman who keeps saying more rain is around the corner whenever you check in with him. With corn planting a fond memory for virtually everyone soybean planting has hit its stride with my best guess being 10 to 20 percent completed. The handful of bean fields planted ahead of the rains two weeks ago have emerged and are looking good. In the corn fields rows of green are easy to see but with the cooler weather the crop has not shown much change from last week. That has not stopped several side dress applicators including myself from going over several fields and surprisingly the job can be done in two inch corn with no problem. Well we will see if the Weatherman’s promises hold true this weekend but with farmers finding themselves in the middle of the ideal bean planting window it’s going to be hard for them to stop in anticipation of a rain that may or may not come.