Prior to the holiday season, a rather mild and dry winter at that point had area farmers concerned about a couple things. Since then, the concerns are certainly still there, but perhaps not as much. One problem expressed to us by the Vermilion County Farm Bureau’s Tom Fricke was a lack of top soil moisture. Now, after the last few weeks of both rain and snow; he says it’s probably a lot better, but likely not all the way.
AUDIO: Rainy time the end of December, the first week of January; even the rain that came prior to this cold snap came before the ground was totally frozen. So a lot of that would have soaked in as well. Whether we’ve gotten all of our deficits cured, I don’t know that. But it had to have helped the situation we’ve dealing with.
And speaking of the ground being frozen, recent extreme cold is helping farmers with another wintertime worry: the frostline. The deeper the soil is frozen, the more bugs get killed off before the next growing season. As Fricke points out, it’s funny how what’s good for the crops is what can drive humans crazy.
AUDIO: We don’t like the hot, humid days in the summer; but the corn does. And we don’t like the deep freeze in the winter, but it helps control the insects, as you said. And so, it’ll certainly make it a better spring if we have this cold snap.
And with the recently released USDA numbers showing that 2023 was indeed a pretty good year, such as with Illinois’ once again number one in the country’s 648 million total bushels of soybeans, Fricke says you always want to be optimistic going into the new growing season. But as always, 2024 will bring plenty of the usual worries; from weather, to trade issues; and then of course the ongoing effort for a brand new federal farm bill. Currently, the 2018 Farm Bill has been extended by legislators to this coming September.
