Insight
John Schlageck
Saturday, August 2, 2008
Driving the back roads and looking at fall crops in Ellis County is a sight to behold.
It’s late July and the soybeans are beginning to bloom.
They’re green, lush and standing tall.
Milo fields look good too. No stress. No wrinkled dry, burnt leaves. Just acres and acres of lush green as far as the eye can see.
This year’s crops are a far cry from several dry years that occurred during the recent past, says Ellis County farmer Lance Russell.
“This year’s crops look phenomenal,” Russell says. “They almost look too good to be true.”
While the Ellis County farmer is quick to note harvest may still be six weeks to two months away, he’s tickled to death with what he sees.
“I’ve been farming for nearly 12 years and I’ve never seen it look so good at the end of July,” Russell says. “Even the Devil’s claw and the Puncture vine are growing lush.”
Although Russell doesn’t have any corn planted on his land, he says his neighbor’s corn looks “amazing” also.
The fall of 2008 may be one of those years — those years that only come around once in a western Kansas farmer’s lifetime. Veteran producers who farm the fickle land on the High Plains have come to expect drought as part of their farming operation. They also know two good years of crops is about as rare as hen’s teeth.
“A neighbor always told me he’s had two good years on his farm,” Russell says with a smile. “The one his grandfather always told him about and the one he always tells his wife is next year. So this might be our next year, this year.”
Fall crops in Ellis County have been receiving timely moisture. The beans and milo received a good shot of moisture, just less than two inches of rainfall, in mid-July. Russell says this rainfall was “just what the doctor ordered” and came at just the right time.
Walking out into one of his milo fields, Russell kneels down between the rows and takes a pair of pliers from his belt. He digs in the soil with one of the handles and approximately one inch below the surface scratches up moist, dark soil which he rolls into a ball.
“The good Lord has blessed us and we’ve got just what we need for moisture right now,” Russell says.
A couple days before, the Ellis County farmer went out to check subsoil moisture in his various crops. He found four feet of moisture in all the profiles he probed.
“If we get another inch and a half or two inch rain in the next couple weeks, we’re on our way home,” Russell says.
As Russell drove through the countryside looking at his soybean and milo crops, he pointed to the grader ridges at the edge of the sand roads.
“You know it’s been a good year for moisture when the county hasn’t had a chance to grade the road back,” he says. “Look at the weeds and grass growing on the grader ridge. That doesn’t happen very often out here.”
That said, fall harvest is still approximately six weeks away, but Russell and his farmer neighbors are crossing their fingers and hoping that 2008 will be one of those special years. One they’ll remember and talk about for a long time. One they’ll file away in the windmills of their minds and one that will help them rejuvenate a bottom line that has been battered by drought during the last several years.
• John Schlageck is a leading commentator on agriculture and rural Kansas.