Oct. 11, 2007
Like a candle in a jack-o’—lantern, a burst of warm weather to start October provided a slightly brighter harvest for local farmers, according to area agriculture experts.
Wisconsin is reflecting a national trend of record corn corps, although the record yield per acre is off record pace, according to Bob Oleson, executive director of the Wisconsin Corn Promotion Board.
“We’ve planted a lot more acres than we’ve ever planted,” Oleson said. “From the perspective of Wisconsin growers, it’s been a pretty good season.”
Farmers across the state planted more corn this year to cash in on cautious predictions from last year that prices would remain high in 2007, he said. Corn prices rose through the 2006 harvest, defying traditional trends of supply and demand.
Higher prices continuing through this year combined with sunny weather in recent weeks helped motivate farmers to haul in 55 percent of the state corn crop by Monday — 11 percent more than the previous four years’ average through by that date.
“We used to try to wrap up the harvest by Thanksgiving; now we try to wrap up the harvest by Halloween,” said Oleson, who was driving a combine harvesting soybeans for a neighbor when the Daily News contacted him. “We had a rainy stage for most of Wisconsin for the middle part of October and that slowed up the harvest, but things are back to full speed ahead.”
Alan Linnebur, farm business educator for the University of Wisconsin Extension of Washington County said farmers are eager to complete the harvest, especially with the favorable pricing.
“Essentially, the crop is money in the field and the sooner the money is locked up the better. The longer it’s out there the more risk there is of corn going down or soybean pods dropping,” Linnebur said. “Farmers are happy about the prices.”
So farmers have been spending most of their time in the fields lately, according to Matt Strelow, who helps farmers secure good prices for their crops as a market advisor for agriculture commodity group Stewart-Peterson in West Bend.
“It’s been tough to get a hold of farmers, because they’re either finishing up with harvest or going hard at it,” Strelow said.
Strelow said he had heard farmers complaining about waiting lists for trucks to ship out their crops.
Oleson said the thriving ethanol industry in the state has kept prices and demand for corn and soybeans high. Six ethanol plants have opened since 2002, he said, and three will come online in the next year. Oleson said the industry is looking spin-off byproducts such as high-protein animal feed, industrial carbon dioxide and building materials.
The cheap U.S. dollar and the needs of developing countries could also keep demand for corn and corn-based products high as the rate of exports increase. And while fuel costs continue to rise, new corn varieties eliminate much of the need for mechanical drying because they are much dryer when harvested.
“By the same token the crops are coming off at better quality,” Oleson said. “We used to spend a lot of time and money drying it. That’s a factor for the market as well, with the cost of fuel being what it is.”
“That’s kind of an underappreciated fact,” he said. “These shorter maturity corns are drying down faster. It’s a huge advance for our perspective.”
The decent weather could help out cattle and dairy farmers as well, according to Haly Schultz, grazing specialist for Town and Country Resource Conservation and Development Inc.
“They’re probably getting an extra month if not three weeks of extra grazers,” Schultz said.
The later in October a plant-killing frost comes, the longer animals can graze on pasture, she said.
“Anytime you can have cattle outside on pasture instead of having to stop early in the fall its going to reduce your feed costs,” Schultz said. “It’s just kind of an icing on the cake kind of thing.”
The Natural Resources Conservation Service estimates a farmer could save $10.70 per cow in energy costs for each month a cow can stay grazing on pasture. Wisconsin’s natural grazing season typically lasts between 150 days and 180 days, Schultz said.
“And this year they’re definitely going to be able to push that 180-day mark,” she said.