Small Town News

Rural Route #8

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The view from

Delayed.

Wet and cold all over? That's what I asked Mike Strunk, owner of Strunk Harvesting out of Silver Lake the other day, just as more rains drifted through.

His answer was yes, wet and cold all over. In fact, he had split his crews and machines, some of which were still in North Dakota, as we ate lunch in Maple Hill in northeast Kansas. And nothing was happening much in the way of harvesting that day anywhere. A couple of days later, the nation had a read on just how bad things are in the world of corn and soybeans. Both commodities were lagging by big percentage margins their five-year averages of completed harvesting, and not much relief was in sight.

To make things worse, many acres of soybeans were damaged by earlier freezes, experts had determined, and the Extension services were scrambling to put out pretty technical how-to stories to outline what growers could do and shouldn't try to do with the damaged beans.

Meanwhile, a local corn grower told me that area farmers were beginning to see ears of corn simply drop to the ground from stalks tired of trying to hang onto the heavy ears since late August. This was happening even as the beans were beginning to show signs of pods popping and releasing their beans to the ground.

It has been a year of hard things surrounding fine prospects, with the bad things pretty much dimming down the hopes, which are in the form, usually, of good prices and high yields.

Out of the chute, the inputs for this year's crop were towering, with fuel, fertilizer, seed and land costs in the stratosphere. Then there were spring rains and cool temperatures which delayed plantings into late spring. Continued cool weather retarded crop development in many areas, and then came the wet and cold fall.

In Kansas wheat country, yields were record shattering on many farms in the western half of the state, but even with smallish to awful yields in Texas and Oklahoma, the prices fell because - surprise, surprise - the rest of the world had a lot of wheat, the market said.

Mike said the only time conditions were ideal this long harvest season, which for him goes from May in Texas until (will it be Christmas) late fall each year, was in western Montana, of all places, where some wheat ground yielded well and was dry and sunshiny for the crews and owners to handle.

And on it goes, agriculture lurching from one season and year into the next, trying to feed the world and its growing population, the haves more querulous than ever over food safety and environmental issues only spoiled people could or would concoct or mount, while the have-nots try to find a tractor and a spray rig and some fuel and seeds to feed themselves and their hungry neighbors. I give you much of Africa, as an example, which the Gates Foundation has discovered and is trying to do something about. The old bumper sticker I still like: Don't cuss farmers with your mouth full.



Copyright 2009 The Wabaunsee County Signal-Enterprise, Alma, Kansas. All Rights Reserved. This content, including derivations, may not be stored or distributed in any manner, disseminated, published, broadcast, rewritten or reproduced without express, written consent from SmallTownPapers, Inc.

© 2010 The Wabaunsee County Signal-Enterprise Alma, Kansas. All Rights Reserved. This content, including derivations, may not be stored or distributed in any manner, disseminated, published, broadcast, rewritten or reproduced without express, written consent from DAS.

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