Mother Nature finally relented, with periodic rains breaking a monthslong dry spell for area farmers.
While it was enough to prompt area counties to end burn bans as dormant vegetation once again showed meager signs of life, ponds and waterways remain woefully low.
Still, Zach Louk sees signs of hope.
Soybean yields, while modest, exceeded his dire expectations.
“The soybeans turned out way better than I think anybody could imagine,” he said. “For the soybeans to be anything at all was just phenomenal, and goes to show the resilience of the newer genetics.”
But the fall forage crops “are nothing less than a tragedy,” Louk continued. “It’s been very difficult. The price of hay, with input costs being so high, and diesel fuel so high, the replacement value of the lost forage is through the roof.”
Recent rains have replenished moisture soil levels where farmers can make due through the dry winter months, Louk predicted.
As a sales director for Green Cover Seed, Louk remains a staunch proponent of no-till farming, with cash crops replenished with cover crops in the offseason.
Doing so will help stave off erosion, he continued.
“It’s inevitable, every winter we’ll have a storm with 50 mph winds and no snow and the dust will just blow,” he noted. “We saw that at harvest. For about a week, traditional tilled ground just blew dust across the landscape.
“People don’t realize those particles are organic matter,” he said. “That’s the part we want to keep on the farm.”
Worse still, barren fields face water erosion once the rainy season returns in the spring without any kind of organic growth to keep things intact.
“I’ve seen pretty staggering pictures of black water running out of fields,” Louk said.
Still, it’s not too late to plant some varieties of cover crops such as cereal rye, even into December.
“To be able to protect and hold that, even if it’s not 100%, is better than bare soil going into the winter,” Louk said.
AND WHILE cold weather typically sends insects scurrying deep into the ground, cover crops may prove beneficial against them come springtime, Louk said.
Soybean cyst nematodes, microscopic parasitic worms notorious for attacking soybean roots, can find sustenance in nuisance weeds like henbit and purple nettle that spring up in untendered soil.
