PIQUA — On the plains of Piqua, there’s a storm a-brewing. Not a storm of rain, but a storm caused in part by rain.
Farmers have enjoyed the fruits of bountiful rainfall. May 19 was the first time since July of 2010 that no county in Kansas suffered from drought, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor and the Hutchinson News.
As inches of rain rose in the rain gauges, per-acre crop yields also increased across the state. But commodity prices have fallen sharply in the past month.
Wheat commodity prices are down from a high of $5.30 per bushel in June to below $4.30 this month, according to NASDAQ prices from the Chicago Board of Trade. Corn meanwhile dropped from over $4.40 in June to almost $3.40 in July. In Kansas, the wheat harvest is finished. Corn harvest is a month away.
But those lower prices come at a time when statewide wheat harvest yields are estimated to be their highest in over a decade. According to Kansas Wheat, the Department of Agriculture estimated this year’s crop to yield 48 bushels per acre statewide, the highest since 2003.
Tim Ellis, assistant manager and chemical supervisor at the Piqua Farmers Cooperative, said the wheat harvest this year was good because of the rain.
“It was a good wheat harvest — it was better than average,” said Ellis, who has worked for 16 years at the Co-op. “I know that’s not getting into the fine detail, but there was some good yields. We’ve had better, and we’ve had a lot worse.”
For the coming corn harvest, Ellis predicted a similar result. And he said there is more corn than wheat planted in the area.
“I think we’re going to see about a 10-15 percent increase on corn (yields),” he said, with rain being he catalyst.
Corn required about an inch of rain a week, Ellis said. “We’ve had that.”
BUT THE EXTRA rain can dampen the spirits of farmers.
“In our area, we’ve had some challenging situations,” Ellis said. “I know there’s corn around Iola that got stressed pretty hard. Not enough rain at the right time, and then it was hot and humid.”
While the impact of rainfall on crop prices is less observable, the effects of the wrong amount of rain at the wrong time is much more visible, Ellis said.
Rust and gray leaf spot, two fungal diseases that affect corn, can be caused in part by high humidity due to rain. Weeds also grow into a bigger problem.
“Every field I’ve walked has had rust in it,” Ellis said. “What that is is just postules that are kind of a brickish-red in color. They form, you want to call them blisters or just little, raised bumps on the leaf’s surface. And it’s because of heavy dews, rains — they provide the ideal conditions for that. And they can rob yields away.”
