Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Drought today, rain tommorrow?

I sprayed weed killer on our bottomland corn fields yesterday, and I don't ever remember seeing that ground so dry. The corn hasn't twisted yet, but much of it is spindly and the leaves are beginning to "fire". We have a small patch planted about a quarter mile down the road from my house and it looks about the same, which is amazing since that ground drains alot quicker than the bottomland.

It's now been over two weeks since we've gotten any rain, and we've gotten less than an inch total this month. But, according to the Weather Channel's online forecast for this area, we have a 30-40% chance of scattered showers today through next Monday, so hopefully we'll finally get some relief. I expect that getting some rain over the next few days will be the difference in salvaging a decent corn silage crop or losing it all together.

This drought has also put us way behind where we need to be on our hay harvest. Typically, all of our bermudagrass hayfields would be ready to cut for a good yield the first and second weeks of June. As it stands, only the ten acres next to my house that I've been applying slurry on has exhibited any real growth.

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