Cold and Dry and Trying to Die

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Stocker Steve

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Froze two nights here this week. This means slow death for most of the soy beans. Will need to replant, but so far there is not enough seed locally. How much moisture do you need to grow millet?

All keeper cattle are on grass. Dry lotted them as long as I could, then sorted off 3 old cows and 10 stockers for the sales barn. Have a much longer list of cows to go in June if needed.

Some are starting to cut hay. The tall stuff headed out at 11 to 15 inches, quit growing, and then started to change color. May have bought too much twine and wrap this spring.
 
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What is going on with this crazy weather? 56 here today.
 
A 56 F is good, 26 not so much. Corn and alfalfa should come back but soy beans are done.

I spoke with a 59 year old BTO and he said this is the first time in his life that he had to replant. Early dry spring turned out to be a trap.
 
German millet has done very well for me in dry years. If you get enough moisture to get it up it produces. Only failure I've had was a couple years ago army worms destroyed it.
 
A 56 F is good, 26 not so much. Corn and alfalfa should come back but soy beans are done.

I spoke with a 59 year old BTO and he said this is the first time in his life that he had to replant. Early dry spring turned out to be a trap.
Some of us didn't get caught in that early spring trap. Just cause the neighbors are farming does not mean it is time. Around here, beans seem to take cold weather better than corn, any chance for an update in a few days?
 
Millet will still need rain to get it going. It's one crop I can't decide if I like. It was probably the best crop I've ever grown one year, been a few wrecks with it too. If you have means to broadcast it then maybe wait till you think it's going to rain then quickly broadcast and harrow? Sorry to hear it's so dry, it's good you have plans to react to it too many animals become a burden pretty fast when nothing will grow.
 
I took a bean tour this morning. The neighbors planted beans looked uniformly OK. My drilled beans were variable. Recently emerged beans look like they will make it, and beans with true leaves are down and brown
 
Millet will still need rain to get it going. It's one crop I can't decide if I like. It was probably the best crop I've ever grown one year, been a few wrecks with it too.
I was planning to spray out an old grassy hay field after first cutting and then NT millet.

Type of millet?
Why the wrecks?
 
I was planning to spray out an old grassy hay field after first cutting and then NT millet.

Type of millet?
Why the wrecks?
Golden German was the big success. Had a Proso wreck when we had newly disced field what was a pasture. Got a couple big rains then very dry and it was an abject failure. Tried again last year on a field that was black. Broadcast then harrowed but there was no moisture for about a month. Some germinated but it just sprawled out on the ground instead of growing upward because there was so much open area. Just seems to be a Goldielocks crop, fantastic when things are jusssst right. Maybe I'm just unlucky with it, or doing it wrong.
 
Most corn is coming back here but some beans are toast. Really odd local corn outcomes - - several whole plants in a row and then several burned down almost to the ground. The dead soy bean situation:

Crop insurance pays U$S 36/acre for a 2021 soy bean replant.
Seed company replant policy varies. Mine gives you a 75% discount off retail price per unit.
Thus your replant cost is covered, but you lose about 18% of the yield potential at this date.
We replanted into dust. The outcome is questionable. Got to do what you can.
 
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That's rough, was hoping you got rain. I don't think we're far behind. I'm still seeding crops I have no confidence will grow. But the seed is bought, fertilizer applied, spray applied and with most alfalfa crops yellow and flat the only hope outside of significant unforcasted rain very soon.
 
We're finally getting a descent rain. It's been gently soaking for 5hrs and counting. Cereals are just coming up and needed this to really get going. Been holding the cattle in one pasture that wasn't grazed after the 1st of September because it was the only one with enough growth to not turn brown the second it saw a cow. There's probably not going to be much of a hay crop but things were about to get dire with crops and pasture too.

Hope this is widespread and @Stocker Steve and his neighbors see some much needed moisture.
 
No moisture UP here and now almost a week of extreme heat. Things are withering away. Started cows on pasture the other day making a quick stop in each paddock, if it doesn't rain substantially soon they will be out of grass by July or sooner.
 
No moisture UP here and now almost a week of extreme heat. Things are withering away. Started cows on pasture the other day making a quick stop in each paddock, if it doesn't rain substantially soon they will be out of grass by July or sooner.
Lots of trailers on the road and some panic in the pasture. It will take a lot of rain to turn this around.

Most guys waited till their pastures were short and now have started to move cattle. I leave the trailer hooked up and haul a few per week.
 
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Around here, beans seem to take cold weather better than corn, any chance for an update in a few days?
Frozen beans have been replanted. Adjusters can not keep up and the late planting insurance date has been extended. Some (twisted) corn never came out of it and is now being replanted. Hard to see how planting corn in the dust during mid June will work out.

Just picked up my SS and German millet seeds.
 
No moisture UP here and now almost a week of extreme heat. Things are withering away. Started cows on pasture the other day making a quick stop in each paddock, if it doesn't rain substantially soon they will be out of grass by July or sooner.
Brutal when the heat comes and there's been no moisture. We're in year 3 of it, this year isn't too far gone if the rains start to come and the grasshoppers don't get too bad - there's a zillion tiny ones all over already, could be a plague. I'm always torn on what to do with the pastures. One thought is to keep moving them quick and not overgraze but after a while you run out of places to go, they also burn worse after being grazed. Last year I just slowed everything down thinking there might only be one good grazing on each pasture. Seemed a little better maybe - didn't have to wean early.

Cattle turn from assets to liabilities pretty quickly in a drought. I shipped anything that looked at me wrong. Why hang on and just have a bigger feed bill if it's bad?
 
Hard to see how planting corn in the dust during mid June will work out.
Agree. I don't see the benefit of replanting without some rain. Perhaps the corn will work out to be forage or silage corn.

Anybody feeding cattle with fallen trees? Back in the day my grandpa would cut a tree each day during a drought.
 

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