“I do everything
young!” – Kobe Bryant
Mr. Bryant was drafted into the NBA at age
17, played his first NBA games as an 18-year-old rookie, got married at the age
of 22, and unfortunately died at the age of 41.
It’s crazy to think, but with this quote, some say he had the foresight and
did converse lightly of an unfortunate abrupt early end of life.
https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/b/bryanko01.html
In the business of farming, a case can
probably be made for doing everything old – the average age of a farm owner is
in the upper 50’s – but we do accomplish things early in the spring if given
the chance. Hopefully, we’ll have the
same opportunities to keep the pace going strong for the upcoming tasks of crop
protection sprays and ultimately the harvest.
The eagerness to plant most of our crops early may or may not be
detrimental to our long-term goals of seasonal production.
Regional Weather
I visibly saw my first dandelion
blooms on Sunday, and to me that signals the ideal time for planting corn. Obviously, we can’t just plant corn for one
day, so hopefully you still have some acres remaining to finish the corn planting
this week as we look for our next moisture event to potentially occur over the
coming weekend.
The week looks to have high
temperatures in the upper 60’s to lower 70’s and morning temps above freezing. If this forecast holds true, we should see
about 10 GDDs per day or 70 for the week (more on GDDs later). Hopefully, the trend of night time low
temperatures above 32F continues through the remainder of spring.
The soil temperature chart (oFahrenheit) comes from NDAWN at 8 am Monday, May 10th. These figures in general are about the same to slightly cooler than last week’s report. We should build soil temperatures significantly over the next 7 days. I highlighted in blue any readings below 40F and gave the red highlights to any reading at or above 48F. Bottineau and Langdon clearly remain the coolest spots, while Fargo has the warmest soils in the state currently.
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 third full week of May, the
forecast for our region looks to have greater potential for well above average temperatures
and well above average precipitation. With
the current drier conditions, any forecasts of above average precipitation are
a welcome sight.
The
NOAA organization also provides three month outlooks. If we would like to get a general feel for the
upcoming winter season (Dec-Jan-Feb), it can be seen here:
https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/predictions/long_range/seasonal.php?lead=8
This
forecast currently predicts equal chances on the temperature potential and
above average on the precipitation potential for most of North Dakota. If we
stay fairly dry through the growing season, we will welcome a bit more winter
precipitation to aid the soil moisture profiles.
Corn Crop Development
I’ll try to pick an average start date for
corn planting in order to provide GDD (Growing Degree Day) maps for the season. I know some operations started planting corn
about 10 days before April ended and other operations are giving the nod to start
today (May 10). Whether right, wrong or
indifferent, I’ll use the date of May 5th as the mid-point of
corn planting to show how the heat units are accumulating for the season.
If you planted corn around the 25th
of April, you can add about 40-50 GDDs to these totals for your first planted
fields (see first map below). Also,
remember that NDAWN’s 30-year average has shifted – basically the decade from
1981-1990 has been replaced with the decade just completed (2011-2020),
creating an updated 30-year average that is cooler and wetter. It’s interesting to note that despite the
early plant opportunity, we are cooler than the 30-year average to start the
season (second map)
If you remember from my posts in years past,
it takes corn about 125 GDD from planting to become emerged – some hybrid
differences do exist. Once emergence
starts, we would like to see 90% of plants emerge within a 48-hour window. Some of those early planted fields have
accumulated 80-100 GDDs currently and should begin to see emergence late this
week and into the coming weekend.
This site from the University of Perdue
describes corn development based on GDD’s as the crop progresses through the vegetative
stages:
https://www.agry.purdue.edu/ext/corn... /VStagePrediction.html
If the latter half of May warms-up with average temperatures, we will have the potential to see V2-V3 corn by the end of the month on these late April planted fields. With 2-3 leaf corn, the herbicide sprayers will be going strong with the first post-emerge applications (assuming no pre-emerge).
USDA Crop Progress Report
Corn planting progress according to the
USDA has progressed to 67% complete across the country (46% last week). Today’s report (Monday, May 10th), also
reveals 42% of the nation’s soybeans are planted which is close to double last
week’s estimate of 24%.
I’d have to say for our region the corn
planting is around 85% complete, and with the rain in the forecast for the
upcoming weekend, it’ll be very near 100% by the end of the day on Saturday
(May 15th). The USDA report
has North Dakota at only 36% corn planting complete, and this is a good
indication that these reports lag by about a week to 10 days when the planting
pace is this fast.
Of the nation’s corn acres that are
planted, only 20% have emerged which is basically right on pace of the 5-year
average of 19%. North Dakota reports 0% of
corn acres have emerged, which everyone should agree as we haven’t had the GDD accumulation
for emergence.
Spring wheat seeding is also ahead of
the average pace at 70% complete (5-year average of 51%). Of the spring wheat that is planted, about 29%
is emerged which is slightly ahead of the 5-year average of 20%. North Dakota reports 66% complete with spring
wheat planting, and 20% of the wheat emerged within the state.
https://usda.library.cornell.edu/concern/publications/8336h188j
ADM to Invest in the North Dakota
Reuters just released an article today (May
10th) outlining ADM’s initiative to build a soybean crushing
facility and bio-fuel refinery in North Dakota.
The US$350 Mil facility will be located outside the town of
Spiritwood. This facility is planned to
be completed prior to the 2023 soybean harvest.
With a through-put of crushing 150k bu of soybeans per day, it’ll
consume about 1.5 mil acres of the commodity annually (based on N.Dakota yield
levels of 38 bu/ac).
ADM is also planning to expand their Quincy,
Illinois facility ($25 mil investment) with work scheduled to be complete by
early 2022. Obviously, this is a good
sign for agriculture in North Dakota when a significant ag-business sees an
opportunity and takes steps forward.
Product Spotlight:
Ag Innovation Campus
With the news of ADM’s investment in
Spiritwood, I pondered the situation developing in Crookston, MN with their
proposed oil seed crush plant. It was a
good timely reminder that the facility in Crookston has an overall different
objective than to mass crush soybeans.
The northwestern Minnesota facility is being
developed on a much smaller scale in order to help develop ideas around additional
uses for oil crops and the end-use products.
The “Ag Innovation Campus” will have a focus on soybeans, but will also be
able to conduct research on the other oil seed crops in the area – canola and
sunflower primarily. The campus will
also have space for classrooms, and industry personnel to effectively
communicate their research and provide an environment to foster creative
ideas.
The Ag Innovation Campus will be able to
crush around 8,000 bushels daily or about 2.5 mil bu annually. The overall goal is to drive additional demand
for oil seed crops, as well as drive down the cost of research to further
develop practical ideas for the crushed oil and byproduct meal. It’ll be interesting to see how this “Campus”
develops as we look 5-10 years into the future.
Random Agricultural Facts
I found an interesting website
today that reflects on some of the history around agriculture production and the
employment of Americans on our nation’s farms.
The group is named “stacker” and they claim they receive their data
through sources such as “American Farm Bureau Federation, USDA, and other
industry and trade groups”.
The topic that caught my eye today
was, “US states with the most farmland acres”.
It’s difficult to find a definition of “farmland acres” on the website,
but it looks like hay and pasture are included.
If you had to guess a state to top
this list, I’d say that most folks would probably guess Texas as the state with
the most farmland acres (and that would be correct). California and Montana are the next largest
areas in land size (excluding Alaska), but surprisingly Montana comes in 9th
(16.6 mil acres) on the list and California 16th (9.6 mil acres) – I
guess too many mountainous areas, and in California’s case, large acreage to
urban development.
Second on the list is Kansas with
28.6 mil acres of cropland (which is really close to Texas’s 29.2 mil
acres). North Dakota comes in at #3 with
27.1 mil acres, while Iowa (26.7 mil acres) and Illinois (23.9 mil acres) round
out the Top 5.
Conversely, the US state with the
least amount of cropland acreage is Rhode Island (25k acres). Our nation’s largest state in land area is
obviously Alaska, but they make this list at #49 with (79k acres). Other New England states round out the Bottom
5 states on the list – New Hampshire (93k acres), Connecticut (123k acres), and
Massachusetts (148k acres).
For those of you in Minnesota, your
state comes in at #6 on the list with 22.5 mil acres. Our Dakota neighbors to the south come in at
#8 with 19.4 mil acres. Read where your
favorite state ranks at the following website:
https://stacker.com/stories/1578/states-most-farmland
https://stacker.com/stories/3554/50-fascinating-facts-about-farming-america
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