“You’re from Indiana,
right? Are you the guy who broke some of
my state high school records? Well, I
got something special for you tonight!” – Larry Bird to his opponent Shawn Kemp
On this particular night of NBA action from December of 1989, Larry Bird’s “something special” was a 40 point, 11 rebound, and 10 assist (triple double) performance in 46 minutes of playing time in the Celtics home win over the Seattle SuperSonics (109-97). The rookie Kemp, only garnered 13 minutes of playing time while accumulating a stat line of 5 points, 1 rebound, and 3 steals. I’m sure late in the game, Larry reminded Kemp who the best player was from the state of Indiana.
https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/b/birdla01.html
By December of 1989, Bird was 33
years-old and coming off a season where he played only 6 games due to surgery
for bone spurs on both feet. He was
still able to place together many great performances, but just not at the
frequency he delivered in the early to mid-1980’s.
In the agricultural world, it’s always
fun to hear about the production some of our great soils and fields in the area
can produce. Hopefully, the 2021 season
will provide conditions for “something special” to be delivered again from
these top performing areas. Unlike our
favorite sport athletes, top producing fields are able to continue to achieve
greatness decade after decade. Good luck
to you, your employee teams, and your top producing fields for the 2021 season!
Regional Weather
Well, the forecast looks to be a
warming trend for the week ahead, but still primarily cool and staying on the
dry side of for precipitation. Last
week, we cooled off a bit as portrayed in the soil temperature chart. We can analyze and review data until we are
blue in the face, but most top producers are fully prepared to hit the field
and they give the signal when their intuition feels right.
The soil temperature chart (oFahrenheit)
comes from NDAWN at 10 am Monday, April 19th. As you can see, it’s primarily deeper in the soil
profile where we are achieving 40F soil temperature readings. Bottineau clearly remains the coolest spot
within the state, while other surrounding areas have conditions where small
grain planting will start/resume towards the end of the week.
I’ll count on your weather app for the best guidance through the 7-8 day forecast, but looking beyond that, I’ve found this site from National Oceanic Atmospheric Association (NOAA) to be fairly reliable for a general 8-14 day outlook (next week).
https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/predictions/814day/index.php
For the last week of April, the
forecast for our region is towards remaining on the cooler than average side for
temps, while also remaining on the drier than average side for precipitation.
The
NOAA organization also provides three month outlooks. If we would like to get a general forecast for
the heart of the upcoming growing season (June-July-Aug), it can be seen here:
https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/predictions/long_range/seasonal.php?lead=2
This
forecast currently predicts above average chances on the temperature potential
for the entire country. When you combine
that with below average chances for precipitation across the Dakota’s and only
equal chances for the heart of the Midwest, it could be a year where we see
some significant production limitation due to drought in the US.
Corn Planting
Last week we discussed corn
planting depth and the importance to have a quick time frame (24-48 hours) to
full emergence once the crop starts to emerge.
Pioneer Agronomy Sciences has conducted the research in the Northern Corn
Belt evaluating planting dates and profitability. Overall, the following figure reveals the
last week of April through mid-May is the ideal window for profitable corn
production.
In reality, that’s a fairly big
window considering today’s machinery and the ability to plant a corn crop
fairly quickly. Personally, I like to
see soil temperatures in the mid to upper 40’sF at minimum and a good 7-day
forecast of building soil temperatures to initiate corn planting. Even under these conditions, it may take the
corn crop three weeks or longer to emerge.
If you have the goal of the crop being fully emerged in two weeks,
obviously you’ll need to wait for warmer soils to start. Currently, we have the time to be patient,
but we all know how that can change quickly.
Sunflower Update
Looking at the USDA forecast for domestic
sunflower planting (March report), the indications are for less sunflower acres
in 2021 than we had in 2020. With over
78% of the US sunflower production in the Dakotas during 2020, it’s not
surprising to see acres decline 25-30% across the US. A couple factors in my mind: the sunflower
commodity price did not mimic canola’s run up to $0.30 /lb cash old crop this
winter, nor follow the significant corn and soybean market gains. These factors ultimately gave crop insurance
disadvantages to sunflower over other crops.
For our Pioneer business, it has been
difficult for us to consistently invest in the U.S. sunflower business due to
these wide swings in acreage. In the business
environment of highly scrutinized quarterly analysis performance, investing
more thoroughly one year with additional sunflower seed production may result
in many years of trying to recuperate those costs. Even though the US plus Canada sunflower
business is less than two million acres, the business culture has created a
scenario where everything gets managed very tightly.
Product Spotlight: P05A73X
Pioneer has advanced a few Extend®
herbicide tolerance soybeans as well this year. For our region, this 05 RM soybean will bring
a nice agronomic and yield fit for the area.
Our internal data indicates that we should see this soybean fit a wide
swath of acres as it brings SCN resistance, above average IDC tolerance and
respectable white mold tolerance. For
yield, it shows very competitive performance against other mid Group 0 RM
varieties. This Xtend® variety will be
present in many trials and small area comparisons across the region. It’ll be a good volume of product and
therefore, we’ll get plenty of data and a good feel for how the product will
perform.
Crop Protection – A Perfect Storm
Back in January, I outlined the concern
in the industry with rising glyphosate and glufosinate (Liberty®) prices in
China due to several factors. Fast
forward a few months and additional factors have occurred to where crop
protection supplies will be thin for US farmers.
Probably the most significant of these
events is the harsh mid-February freeze in Texas. Texas is one of the top states in the US for
manufacturing of pesticides primarily due to the fact that it has sea port
access for raw ingredients and moderate winter temperatures for outside storage
of product.
I’m sure by now you are hearing similar
concerns from your pesticide suppliers on the developing situation. From actual active ingredients, to the inert
ingredients in the jug, to cardboard for packaging to shipping logistics around
the world, it’s all coming together and will impact the 2021 US growing season. At this point, I’d recommend you push to get
as much of your crop protection needs as possible in your warehouse. Good luck.
Random Agricultural Facts – Driest US
Places
Since we had the US wettest
locations last week, let’s take a gander at the driest locations this week. It doesn’t take too much thought to get our
focus on the western 1/3 of the US. But,
which of the western states is the driest and where are the driest locations?
The driest locations are in
southeast California’s Mojave and Sonoran Deserts on the east side of the
Sierra-Nevada mountains. As the jet
stream flows from west to east, any large mountain range will see a rain shadow
effect on the east side. Death Valley,
California sees only 2.35 inches of rainfall per year making it the driest spot
in the US. As for the driest states,
different websites will present a slightly different numerical order, but
typically it’s Nevada followed by Arizona, and New Mexico rounding-out the top
three driest states.
One location making a surprise
appearance on the driest location list is Ugnu-Kuparuk Airport in Alaska, which
sits about 15 miles inland from the Arctic Ocean in north-central Alaska. This location is only good for 3.8” of
precipitation per year.
https://www.currentresults.com/.../places-with-lowest-precipitation.php
https://www.worldatlas.com/.../driest-states-in-US....html
https://www.currentresults.com/Weather-Extremes/US/driest-states.php
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