“It’s hard to sugarcoat it. A lot of money has been spent on this crop. You stand there looking at all the wet fields and it’s like watching money flowing away.”
As frequent rains have continued into October, so have fears that Mid-South crops — left in wet fields with frustrated growers unable to harvest — are suffering yield losses.
The soybean situation in Arkansas hasn’t changed much since the first of October.
“Back then, we were at about 19 percent harvested, and there are a lot of reports of mold,” says Jeremy Ross, Arkansas Extension soybean specialist. “Not much has changed although I’ve gotten calls from farmers complaining about beans beginning to get soggy and mushy.”
Speaking from Alexandria, La., on Oct. 16, David Lanclos says, “the sun is finally shining and a north wind is blowing 25 miles per hour. After what we’ve had, this is good news.”
Lanclos, the Syngenta tech service representative for the south Delta (Mississippi and Louisiana), says harvested soybeans were “very good — we were running anywhere between 40 and 90 bushels on most fields. I know those numbers are hard to believe, but that made a lot of folks optimistic.
“I think a lot of people did really well in dealing with herbicide-resistant weeds this year. They put down residual herbicides, maintained the fields in a clean manner. That paid dividends in terms of yield in the beans we were able to cut.”
Then, the rains set in. Beans still in the field were ready, on average, at least four or five weeks ago.
“The fields I’ve walked have been hurt from a quality standpoint. But when you shell them out of the pod, they’re still acceptable. I’m not naïve enough to think the beans won’t have any damage when they’re brought to the elevator. Yes, the yield, test weights and quality have been hit, but I’m still optimistic about the bean crop. To have a decent crop, we just need to get in the field and rut them out in the next few days.”
Lanclos has heard of sprouting in pods. “That’s unfortunate, but that’s reality in these environmental conditions.”
Also part of that reality: the expected loss of some 15,000 soybean acres in the Cache River and White River bottoms of Arkansas’ Prairie County. With the rivers backed up, growers also could lose nearly 5,000 acres of rice.
“The flooding started in the spring and has been intermittent all through the season,” says Brent Griffin, Prairie County Extension staff chair. “Now, the water finally got them.”
It wasn’t for lack of a fight, though. “The rivers have been up and down all season. In some fields farmers have replanted three times. Much of the rice survived the early floods. Now that it is mature — or close to maturity — it hasn’t been able to push through.
“The ducks and geese will have some good food this winter, I guess.”
Continue reading more at the Delta Farm Press
10/19/9
Magnolia Tribune
