I’ve talked in this space before about my dad’s favorite days. One of them is the last day of harvest, when the crop is in the bin and all you have to do is dry it and sell it for, hopefully, a worthwhile price.
But perhaps the more important day is the last day of seeding. Once the crop is in the ground you have opportunity. If everything goes right, you will have the opportunity to harvest a crop and the opportunity to sell it for a worthwhile price. If my seed remains in the bin and not in the ground, I have no opportunity. I will have black dirt that has weeds growing on it and that is all.
I’ve seen many news stories this year about the high prices farmers are getting for their crops. It seems to me that many people think we throw the seed out in the ground, it grows, we harvest it, and then sell it for a record price.
What isn’t reported is the roll mother nature plays in farming. This year our challenge has been a wet, cool spring. The fields really never did dry out to an acceptable level to be planted. We planted a lot of our crop in marginal conditions this year. Everything is going to have go right to have a decent crop this year. We will have to have enough sunlight and heat to get the plants up and moving, we will have to see moderate rainfall to coax roots from poorly planted seeds to go down in the soil to get the nutrients the plant needs. We will have to have a late fall to allow us to harvest the crop in a decent matter, and if we are lucky we will get the fields in good enough shape to plant a crop next year.
As you can see, there are a lot of ifs involved and a lot of things that will have to go right. Most importantly, the seed is in the ground and that is what will give us opportunity.
