As farmers await the new planting season, all these mild February temperatures have some of them looking back to about a decade ago. And as the Vermilion County Farm Bureau’s Tom Fricke tells us, it wasn’t something positive.
AUDIO: Remembering back to the last time we kind of had a cycle like this, where February was a lot warmer than normal, was in 2012. And we all know what happened then in the summer of 2012, (it) was our last big drought year. So we hope that’s not a replay of that season.
Fricke says no matter how mild February has been, no one is jumping the gun to an early planting season, as we have a long way to the first of April.
Meanwhile, projections right now are that Illinois farmers will plant both more acres of soybeans and more acres of corn this year. As far as where those new acres would come from, Fricke reminds us of a few possibilities.
AUDIO: It could be some ground that maybe has been in a conservation program in the past. And maybe those conservation contracts are coming up, and they’re not renewing those; they’re putting those back in production. It could be, in some areas, ground that maybe had wheat on it before that’s going to be planted either to corn or soybeans. It could be some pasture ground that’s being converted to farming.
Fricke says although a drop in input and fertilizer costs may be bringing some optimism and higher planting projections, the fact remains that most input costs are still well above where they were three or four years ago. Therefore, continued elevated commodity prices are a major key.
