How much more corn? How much did it rain?

The big question in much of the South on Monday (the day after April Fool's Day) will be: How much did it rain?

The Midsouth and much of the Southeast have been been unseasonably dry. In the last week of March, parts of Mississippi were running nearly 7 inches behind on rainfall compared to the historic year-to-date average.

Rain moved across much of Arkansas and Louisiana on Saturday morning, then into Mississippi in the afternoon. A few showers were popping up late in the afternoon in west Alabama.

Showers are in the forecast across much of the region going into the new week. How much it rains will, in part, determine how much more corn is planted in both the Delta and the Southeast.

Dewey Long, Extension grain specialist in Georgia, told me late last week that a combination of dry conditions and increasing fertilizer costs could reduce the projected corn crop in his state from 500,000 acres to something closer to 400,000. Corn planting had virtually stopped in Georgia due to dry conditions.

In the Delta states, corn irrigation started up at least a week ago. Growers were either watering up fields, sustaining young plants on light ground or pre-irrigating so that they could plant corn. Also, some pumps have been running to activate surface-applied nitrogen.

Dan Poston, associate professor at Mississippi State's Delta REC in Stoneville, said late this week that if growers cannot finish corn planting soon or if they have concerns about nitrogen’s cost or availability, they may opt for soybeans.

Tom Barber, Mississippi Extension cotton specialist, said if the weather stays dry until the middle of April, some growers may switch from corn and soybeans back to cotton. Mississippi farmers planted 1.23 million acres of cotton in 2006, but they are expected to plant only 740,000 acres this year.

Dry conditions are causing some Mississippi corn producers to begin irrigating early. This tractor cultivates rows in a Sharkey County corn field near Anguilla, Miss., to make way for furrow irrigation while a center pivot irrigation system runs in a field behind the tractor. (Photo by Robert H. Wells/MSU Delta Research and Extension Center)

The Rural Internet - A Primmer

Vicki Garrick, an assistant dean at the University of Georgia's Tifton campus, writes about shared broadband internet usage in this month's issue of Rice Farming magazine. The article - The Rural Internet - is a brief primmer on the subject of wirelessly connecting scattered locations.

It includes a table comparing different forms of connecting to the web and the fit each might have in rural areas. Choices include dialup, digital subscriber lines (DSL), satellite connections and fixed wireless service.

One of the real disservices done to rural Americans has been the lack of a federal effort to bring more broadband service to rural areas. The same sort of campaign that pushed electrification into the countryside in the first half of the 20th Century has been needed to bring broadband to farmers who are too far from town for DSL service.

Where federal money has gone into wireless broadband, it has tended to be to places like Indian reservations. I've got no problem with funding that, but the bulk of the countryside - where farmers grow crops and need ready connections to the internet - are largely bypassed.

Low-interest loans for building out wireless service have been unavailable to small businesses that operate wireless services. It's a great technology that has gone to waste.

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About a third of Texas rice crop now planted

About 32% of the Texas rice crop has been planted, based on the Friday estimate posted on the state's Rice Crop Survey web site.

Friday's USDA planting intentions report indicates that Texas growers could increase plantings this year by 6.67%, moving it from 150,000 acres in 2006 to 160,000 acres in 2007. That's still significantly below the 202,000 acres planted in 2005.

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Custom Rate Survey Provides Farmers Baseline Costs

Greg Halich, farm management specialist with the University of Kentucky College of Agriculture, has compiled a baseline guide for custom machinery rates in Kentucky. Halich gathered information from Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, Iowa and Kansas. The rates he has calculated are averages for these combined states and are adjusted for differences in fuel price, machinery costs and wages at the time of the reported surveys.

Adjusted data is available on 64 grain crop operation tasks, 44 hay operations, 34 miscellaneous operations and 72 unadjusted rates for miscellaneous operations.

"The stimuli for doing this came both from county extension agents and from farmers who where looking for custom rates for Kentucky,” he said. “So the need was there, but there was no time to do it (a state survey) before spring planting. There were a lot of other surveys that were applicable to Kentucky conditions, so why not utilize them in some fashion? So, I came up with the idea of averaging the other surveys and modifying them for differences.”

Click here for more info on the project.

Click here to download the full survey report.

Will early wheat translate into more doublecropping?

Warm spring weather has consistently pushed the wheat crop across much of the lower South, and that might influence the final planted acreage in soybeans, cotton and even rice.

Some wheat could come out of the field in the south Delta in the first 7 to 10 days of May, based on several conversations we had this week while gathering info for AgFax: Southern Grain.

A couple of fields were harvested in south Arkansas last year as early as May 18. There's some speculation that a few fields could be ready this year before then - cases where growers planted early maturing varieties on an early schedule last fall. Early-planted fields in Louisiana also could be ready in early May.

In past seasons, it's been questionalble whether doublecrop soybeans pay in the lower Midsouth, even with irrigation. But with higher bean prices, it's likely that more growers may push for a second crop, especially if they can irrigate. Every year, a few people plant rice behind wheat in Arkansas. And the concept of doublecrop cotton is a bit more sound these days with something like DPL 444, which is commonly grown behind wheat in south Georgia.

Not every acre of Midsouth wheat will be a sure candidate for doublecropping this year because a large portion of the crop was planted late and/or later-maturing varieties were used. Rain moved into the region last year on October 15-16 and shut down most planting until a week or so before Thanksgiving.

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