On May 29, we received rainfall in the range of 0.5-1 in. With the wind, sun and high temperatures drying the soil surface, I was able to return to postemergence application of herbicides in our cornfields on May 31; it was a real challenge to avoid the soft areas of mud. Every day the situation improves, but not as fast as farmers would like. As they waited to enter the fields, some farmers began mowing roadsides. On June 2, tractors were returning to some fields to work ground to dry out the soil in order to plant the next day. There were also a few farmers I saw planting no-till or planting ground that was worked before the rain knocked them out of the field on May 22 without reworking the soil. The conditions are not ideal, but the farmers do not want to wait any longer to plant more of their crops.
Some other field activities in the last day or two were rotary hoeing to help corn emerge and applying side-dress nitrogen. We have not planted our remaining acres yet. Those areas still need more time to dry out. In the next day or two we should be able to finish the planting.
I would say about 96% of our corn crop has now emerged. Corn development varies from still in the bag or fighting to emerge on up through the V5 growth stage. The furthest developed soybean field in the local areas is at V1. Many soybean fields and some cornfields remain to be planted. Right now, we are behind 2009 in the progress of field activities that we need to make.
The local closing bids for June 2 were $7.63 for nearby corn, $6.61 for new-crop corn, $14.08 for nearby soybeans and $13.60 for new-crop soybeans.