Welcome to day four of the 2015 Farms.com Risk Management U.S. Corn Belt Crop Tour. It’s the official start of the state of Missouri. It’s June 29th – a Monday, and we’re standing in front of a corn field. As we’ve travelled southwest on highway 24, we’re near Paris. We’re seeing a little bit more again of that variability and inconsistency and unevenness in the corn crops. Missouri is one of the states that was hit with a lot of moisture as well. I had seen a little bit of tasseled corn along the way, but not as much as we saw in Illinois. Missouri has had a huge problem trying to plant the beans as of June 22nd. They had about almost 2-2.9 72% of the beans were unplanted in the state of Missouri, so we’ll see if a lot of those acres are getting in the ground or not. But the beans here, from what I see, look late. They just barely are getting out of the ground. So, again, going to probably put a drag on the national yield.
We’re now in front of a wheat field. We’re travelling west on highway 24. We’re near Moberly, Missouri and this is our fourth day, and a lot of the wheat fields we’ve seen this year are looking really good. Here’s another nice looking wheat field that’s ready to be harvested. The market is concerned that too much moisture may be causing some vomitoxin issues, some quality issues, some protein and yield issues, but from what we’ve seen thus far, farmers are slowly harvesting the wheat. In some cases it’s too wet, but this is looking good. A little bit of weed pressure, but nonetheless, a good looking wheat crop.
We’re travelling west on highway 24 near Clifton Hill, Missouri. We’re in front of a soybean field. This field was planted late, you can tell. It’s just maybe at two leaf foliage, just barely out of the ground, most likely due to too much moisture. Missouri has had that issue so I wanted to show you a late planted soybean field. It’s a sunny day today, but definitely behind and if we go across the road, we have a field that’s been abandoned, so why was that field planted, but this one wasn’t? We’re seeing more of this – we saw a little bit in Illinois yesterday. Seeing a little bit more of this in the state of Missouri.
We’re travelling west on highway 24, near Brunswick, Missouri and we’re on top of a hill. And I wanted to give you the view from here because we’ve been looking at a lot of corn from the side of the road and sometimes that’s deceiving, and when you look from above you can see some of the moisture issues we’ve been talking about so far in our tour. Some drowned out areas, some yellowing corn in the far distance there again due to some moisture, maybe some nitrogen runoff. This corn – a little bit behind for this time of the year. Not going to be pollinating here any time soon – probably delayed a couple of weeks, but this is what we’ve seen. This is what’s been common in the state of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and now Missouri.
We’re travelling southwest on highway 41 toward Marshall, Missouri, and this Is some of the best corn we’ve seen – the most mature anyway. We did have some good corn in Indiana, Illinois, but looking forward to some heat and we’ve finally got some heat here today, so getting ready to pollinate probably over the next week or two.
We’re south of Malta Bend, near Marshall, Missouri, and this has been the theme in 2015. In the background, you’ve got some really good looking corn, near tasseling and… you’ve got this. Two leaf stage soybeans, planted late, probably planted mid-June. We were able to get the corn in early – the moisture helped that, but the moisture was not helping getting the beans in, and that’s the contrast you’re seeing in 2015.
We’re on highway 36 near Osborn, Missouri. We’re going to conclude our state video in Missouri. We’re in front of a corn field and the big theme over the last four days has been just too much moisture affecting the crops. In Missouri, the corn doesn’t look too bad but there’s some variability, some unevenness, there’s a little bit more consistency in some parts of it but I think the moisture hit the beans the most. Out of the 5.7 million acres, maybe as much as 30% will not get planted. There’s some guys still trying to get last minute beans in the ground, but finally they’re getting a little bit of a break – we’ve got some heat here today, but if I was to rank Missouri out of the four states we’ve seen thus far, probably put it right in line with perhaps Ohio. Some of the beans are just barely coming out of the ground, two leaf stage.
I want to thank our sponsors: Tasco Dome, Penta Tillage, South West Ag Partners and Pride Seeds.