I was wrong about food costs this year.

Yer looking in the wrong places https://www.ams.usda.gov/mnreports/lsddhps.pdf

 

Middle of May and here in Southern IL we still can't get into the fields to plant anything. Might be a few top land fields planted but for the most part there won't be much corn from this region. Rains heavy 4 out of every 7 days. So yeah a lot of us will be taking no plant on corn. If the rain keeps on we will write beans off in June and probably be planting a lot of wheat in the fall What will hurt me is the corn I raise goes into finishing my hogs and a no corn year means......I have to buy that corn and that translates to my pork prices going up .50 to .60 cents per pound. Fortunately I am a small 250 head operation and still have 210,000 pounds of corn in my grain bank at the Elevator, that will carry me through Next winter and well into the summer of 2020. But I do pasture hogs and only feed out a average of 300 pounds per head to finish VS 800+ pounds of grain for a confinement fast finished hog. Take me 12-14 months to finish hogs on pasture with grain supplement vs 6-8 Months full grain feed confinement and fast growing breeds. LOL Cost me less per head to finish but takes considerably more time. But I can ask and get premium prices direct marketing the pasture pork.......... even though I don't unless it is a buyer of a political leaning I don't agree with

 

Here in Or, we are finally back to producing Mint and Hops on the two remaining farms we have. They have not produced anything but Rye for several years, but last year We made the call to switch back to high yield Mint, and even at a loss, to start back up with the Hops in hopes of a better crop and market next season! Both farms are in the Ideal location for Hops, but the mint is a much higher profit, so we split! I had my manager burn off last years stubble and then let it run till just before planting when we tilled it under and graded it back out for planting. Should go like gang busters this first crop! We got all the lumber and wire up for the hops and are setting up the tractors for picking, don't know what we will end up with , but it's looking good so far, If we can pull in about 60% of what was planted, were doing good! @70% we will have a nice aging hops well into Sept, and will hold off the second picking till late Sept early Oct. then freeze pack what we have! I'm also going to start planting fruits again on the upper near the house and buildings, Apples, Pears, and Plumbs always do well, but take a while, and Will also start the berries again! These farms have been sitting for too long and mismanaged, so were going to fix that! Ura-Ki back in the farming business! LOL

 

that is the USDA report for slaughter not the commodity market

 

YEs that is because the Belly Futures Game killed itself and all you will find are lean hog futures now. You have to look at the slaughter reports to get a gauge on the belly market. LEan Hog Volume is anything but low, it is however very volatile You can make a lot of money really fast or lose a lot of money really fast playing the hog futures. In the old fresh belly futures market it was a rigged game that if you knew how to play it, you made consistent profits year in and year out. Surplus every fall that was held back until the next summer when supplies were at minimum. The big ballers in the belly futures killed their own goose that laid the golden eggs

 

Here in north Alabama we have the same problem...too much rain and the fields never get a chance to dry out. I'm still trying to get the ground ready for a garden. I should have had the seeds in the ground a month ago.

 

I have transplanted tomato and pepper plants up to bigger pots 3 times now and the only option now is to go from 6" pots to 5 gallon buckets and the #10 bean and vegetable cans I save from the Chuck Wagon. LOL nowhere near enough to move 400 tomato and 800 pepper plants into Have about 9-10 days left to get them in the ground or toss them and start new seeds for a later crop. ANd got another inch of rain this morning in 2 hours time. I am usually done planting by now other than the succession crops like beans and sweet corn. Pretty much a given I am going to take no plant on my field corn at this point and hope we can beans in. Not thrilled about the prospect of back to back beans but gotta do what you gotta do.

 

Holy crap. Will it ever stop raining here? Were you able to get beans in? Some corn starting to pop up but nothing like normal. Many farmers here across THE RIVER have written off the field corn this year too.

 

I agree @mysterymet, the rain and storms keep coming. Colorado is forecasted to get snow in the mountains on Tuesday. I read that many dams in Kansas and Nebraska are overflowing.

 

Florida could use a bit of rain now. Hot and dry!

 

Sleeting here in northern AZ. Windy and cold. It doesn't seem to want to go away.

 

Are they just frigging with the weather to cause a problem ??
I see Chem trails laid on every cloudy day or just before .. The sky turns to haze and my solar harvest is cut.
Then the clouds move in , after the clearing I won't see the dart droppers till were expecting clouds , Im WET coast BC Kanada , on the big rock 1/2 way up both sides .

Every human intervention has caused a foobar PLUS .
Sloth
Alaska Airlines site in at 40-45K of feet , Dart droppers are 55-59K
Helijet Sikorsky S76 at 6-9k feet is ranged in
Sloth

 

No plant on corn in 3 more days, beans will be I believe June 10th for no plant. Those are just the FSA Risk Management no plant dates for insurance. We have planted beans as late as mid July and got great yields but are uninsured as they are counted as double crop beans after the no plant dates. Could still plant corn again uninsured but the yields would suck as the temps are already too high for good pollination. We just got another 1.15 inches of rain yesterday afternoon. Bright side if you want to call it a bright side the temps are running in the high 80s-low 90s now so it is drying faster after each rain, LOL just hot and miserable with all the heat and high humidity from all the moisture evaporating. Good friend farms 750 acres and has managed to get 125 of those acres mudded in on the hill tops and well drained slopes. Everyone in this region is in about the same boat.

 

Friend down in Florida visited a week ago and said Southern IL has more moisture, swamps, skeeters and humidity than Florida does this year.

 

They started at 4pm here with 12 darts
round edges are real , wisps are CHEMS
two different levels of altude ,if you can see.
Just 5 min ago , your getting rain !!

 

I was talking with a friend of mine in Midwest this weekend, she says no crops in yet but ok with that as they still have last year's corn harvest in silo. Will make a mint off of stored grain this year.

 

I keep seeing chem trails that feather out and spread. All laid out beside each other like a grid. once in a while a normal plane will go by and I show my kids what a regular plane leaves behind it. I try to make my kids understand what is going on. Also so they get that dad isn't losing it. (i lost it a long time ago)

 

@ Ura-Ki,

Can you elaborate a bit? What kind of mint do you grow, and do you have to hand plant it? RE Hops, that is very labor intensive. Do you have a field set up with 20' tall racks or how do you grow it? (I have hops growing up the side of in-laws' grainery that I've used in home brew)

 

I went to Washington state back in the late fifty’s and worked in the hop fields,never again. Sixteen years old,had to hitchhike home. Got home somehow without getting in jail. That old farm looked really good when I got home.No money,parents told me to get home on my own. Never left home again without a pocket full of money and a way to get home.

 

The mint we planted is what's locally called Black Peppermint, and this first crop is done in seed, later in a few years, we will turn it and replant the roots ( mint is a lot like black berries, once it takes a set, it will always come back! Normally a seed crop is planted the same as any row crop, but replanting root is done by hand.
Hops are very late this season, so while I have 4 flat bed loads of polls delivered and strung, we will not see a crop turn this season, but next season should see two turnings! We chose to plant a Belgian Hybrid this time as there is a demand and our farm is historically known to do well with this species!
My Brothers tossed a grenade in the works, and we are going to end up with 20 acres of Grape, we have a lot of work ahead of us, but once that's in, should be pretty fun! Haven't decided on which verity were going to plant, but we have time!
MY fruit orchard is going to have to wait until all the construction is done, as we need unrestricted access to every thing before we commit to that!
We have made a pretty big investment here, and the equipment costs have us deep in the red, but it's recoverable and will continue to work for us as the plantings change! The one unavoidable expense besides seed for the Mint is the processing equipment. We bought two distiller truck bodies, and scrapped the rest and will be converting a pair of Timber Jack Forwarders with the rebuilt distiller bodies, and we are making them modular so they can be turned for hops production and maintenance! which leaves us with only one harvester needed for the actual picking, the rest is done by hand old school! Bonus is the harvester is a hybrid combo that converts to berries, we got it used but in good shape!