USDA officials from Washington will be touring fields in Indiana today, looking at drought-damaged crops. Farm and Foreign Agricultural Services Undersecretary Michael Scuse will visit Allen and White Counties on Wednesday and Johnson County on Thursday. If they were to go further south, they would see a very desperate situation. HAT farmer field reporter Brian Hirsch, in Gibson County, says for many in his area the corn is a total loss, “On some of the poor ground yield will be a total zero.” Hirsh says, on some of the better ground, growers will get a crop but with very poor yields, “On some of the better ground, I think I will get about 90 bpa.” He told HAT that the Gibson County average corn yield will be around 50 bpa.
There have been reports that some growers in Southern Indiana have decided to give up on this year’s crop and just disc it under. Hirsch says very few farmers in his area are giving up on the corn crop, “I think this is the exception rather than the rule. Most folks around here are going to stick it out and see what kind of yield they get.” In an attempt to get some kind of a crop, a few producers in Gibson County are planting double crop soybeans into wheat stubble right after some of the scattered showers that have move through the area. Hirsch admits it is getting sort of late for this kind of move, but he said folks are getting desperate.
Listen to the complete report with Brian Hirsch on the DuPont Pioneer agronomy page and in the audio section of the HAT Smartphone app.