As I write, the seed plant is almost finished processing and there is some grubbing and cultivation to complete. The bean stubbles have been sprayed ahead of next year’s corn (maize) crop and gypsum (calcium and sulphur) is being applied to the land.
Many farmers in the region were harvesting much later than us due to the poor harvest weather and so they did not get around to doing these jobs. This will add to their workload pressure next spring. Spring workload is perhaps the only benefit to accrue from the early harvest here arising from the summer drought.
Our soya bean harvest was worse affected by the drought than was anticipated. Yields here averaged 40 bushels (bu) per acre (1.089t/ac). There was a low of 33bu (0.898t/ac) on the first field harvested and a high of 63bu (1.715t/ac) on a farm west of Maitland.
This same farm achieved the highest corn yield also at 140bu/ac (3.556t/ac). This farm just got a small bit more rain compared to the rest of the Rosenbohm crops. Kevin Rosenbohm normally hopes for 70bu/ac (1.9t/ac) of beans and is disappointed with 50bu (1.361t/ac).
The first few fields of beans varied a lot in moisture, from 9% to 14.5%, due to variable maturity.
The soya bean variety trial on the Rosenbohm farm did not produce any usable data this year due to the drought. However, it did show the impact of soil type, with the heavier clay yielding over 50bu/ac more than the sandier area in the same small patch of ground. This difference would be much smaller in a normal year.
Eight inches of rain in 12 days
Harvest came to a standstill on 1 October with thunderstorms, high winds and heavy rain delivering eight inches over 12 days. There were some good frosty mornings during this period, which caused the beans to die off. This helped even up moisture levels thereafter.
However, this volume of rain made field conditions very difficult and it was impossible to travel in some areas. The combines left deep ruts and tracks in parts of fields. These had to be grubbed up later to remove compaction. Other farmers in the area retrofitted tracks on their combines and chaser bins to deal with this problem -- an investment that cost over $70,000 per combine.
Rain so close to soya bean harvest caused beans to get wet and dry, resulting in beans breaking out of their pods. This pod shatter causes further loss as it is impossible to get the beans once they fall to the ground. For this reason farmers that were not finished corn had to move their combines to soya bean crops to help prevent or minimise the losses from pod shatter.
Corn is more durable and less impacted by weather conditions and the combines returned when the beans were harvested.
Bean quality hit
The quality of the beans can only be described as ‘ugly’, according to Kevin. The Graham seed cleaning plant normally has a clean-out rate between 8-10%, this year it is as high as 35%. The drought caused a lot of beans to split and become shrivelled. Apart from being down on yield, the quality is so poor that most farmers are not getting the premium price they normally get for seed quality beans.
The plant here only processed one-third of the amount of bean seed compared to 2017. Now some of the germination test results from the cleaned seed are so low that further production losses are inevitable.
As well as the drought, the price for soya beans is also very low currently as a consequence of Trump’s tariffs. The disagreements between the US and China have caused the price of soya beans to drop to $8/bu compared $11/bu in 2017. Premium for seed quality normally adds $1.25/bu.
Tariff compensation
To help offset the impact of the tariffs, the state is to pay a subsidy which farmers are calling the “Trump Bump”. The soya bean subsidy is calculated as total bushels harvested ÷ 2 then × $1.69. So an acre that averaged 40bu gets a payment of $33.80/ac (40 ÷ 2 = 20 × $1.69).
Corn price is around $3.50/bu, which is only 10c/bu less than last year, and is not really affected by the tariffs. The state has only offered a payment of $0.01/bu. Most farmers seem unlikely to claim this as they do not want to hand over their information on inputs and yields.
Input costs are up compared to 2017, with the main costs being fertiliser (up 3%) and diesel (up 10%). Price of machinery is also up.
John Deere, the main manufacturer in this area, is up 5% for 2019. Labour cost has also increased for 2019 following the midterm elections.
Future expectations
Even if America and China come to an agreement on tariffs, soya bean price will still remain low due to high global supply. The majority of the US had bumper soya crops this year and these would normally be shipped to China. States like North Dakota do not have enough bin storage for beans and farmers have had to build outdoor silos to store them.
It is estimated that the area of soya beans in the US will drop by 4m acres in 2019 while corn area will increase by 3m acres. However, the Rosenbohms will stay with a 50:50 mix due to the fertiliser plan they use. Much of the phosphorus and potassium applied to corn in 2018 should carry over to next year’s soya crop and this will decrease fertiliser costs by about half. Kevin sees this as very important in terms of remaining optimistic following the problems of 2018. A poor year also leaves potential for optimism on yields in 2019.
The big price drop for beans caused by the trade war may mean that some farmers will not be able to farm next year. Low yields and low prices are a deadly combination. The Rosenbohms hope that the seed plant will break even given the low throughput this year. The aim after that is to keep costs to a minimum by maintaining machinery and avoiding new purchases.
Crop insurance
This is the first year in Kevin’s farming history that he will use crop insurance. Insurance is based on the average yields achieved on a farm over the last three years. His average corn yield for the last three years is 210 bu/ac (5.33t/ac).
There are different levels of crop insurance. The Rosenbohms opted for the basic insurance of 55%, which cost $7/ac in 2018. This year the farm averaged 80bu/ac of corn, which is only 38% of the three-year average. So the crop insurance will pay 17% (55% – 38%) or 35bu to get the yield up to 55% of average, which is 115 bu/ac.
Kevin emphasises that crop insurance still allows you to lose money, it just helps to lose a bit less. Farmers can pay more and get a higher percentage cover – this normally goes up in 5% increments up to 75% of average yield.
Application for the 2019 ITLUS/UAS/Rosenbohm internship is now open and application forms can be found on www.ITLUS.ie
The Rosenbohm harvest in Graham finished up on 24 October 2018 and it was one of the worst harvests ever experienced.Yields were back by more than one-third compared to recent years.High rainfall made harvesting difficult at times. Low yields forced the use of the crop insurance option. Bean quality was adversely affected by the weather conditions.
As I write, the seed plant is almost finished processing and there is some grubbing and cultivation to complete. The bean stubbles have been sprayed ahead of next year’s corn (maize) crop and gypsum (calcium and sulphur) is being applied to the land.
Many farmers in the region were harvesting much later than us due to the poor harvest weather and so they did not get around to doing these jobs. This will add to their workload pressure next spring. Spring workload is perhaps the only benefit to accrue from the early harvest here arising from the summer drought.
Our soya bean harvest was worse affected by the drought than was anticipated. Yields here averaged 40 bushels (bu) per acre (1.089t/ac). There was a low of 33bu (0.898t/ac) on the first field harvested and a high of 63bu (1.715t/ac) on a farm west of Maitland.
This same farm achieved the highest corn yield also at 140bu/ac (3.556t/ac). This farm just got a small bit more rain compared to the rest of the Rosenbohm crops. Kevin Rosenbohm normally hopes for 70bu/ac (1.9t/ac) of beans and is disappointed with 50bu (1.361t/ac).
The first few fields of beans varied a lot in moisture, from 9% to 14.5%, due to variable maturity.
The soya bean variety trial on the Rosenbohm farm did not produce any usable data this year due to the drought. However, it did show the impact of soil type, with the heavier clay yielding over 50bu/ac more than the sandier area in the same small patch of ground. This difference would be much smaller in a normal year.
Eight inches of rain in 12 days
Harvest came to a standstill on 1 October with thunderstorms, high winds and heavy rain delivering eight inches over 12 days. There were some good frosty mornings during this period, which caused the beans to die off. This helped even up moisture levels thereafter.
However, this volume of rain made field conditions very difficult and it was impossible to travel in some areas. The combines left deep ruts and tracks in parts of fields. These had to be grubbed up later to remove compaction. Other farmers in the area retrofitted tracks on their combines and chaser bins to deal with this problem -- an investment that cost over $70,000 per combine.
Rain so close to soya bean harvest caused beans to get wet and dry, resulting in beans breaking out of their pods. This pod shatter causes further loss as it is impossible to get the beans once they fall to the ground. For this reason farmers that were not finished corn had to move their combines to soya bean crops to help prevent or minimise the losses from pod shatter.
Corn is more durable and less impacted by weather conditions and the combines returned when the beans were harvested.
Bean quality hit
The quality of the beans can only be described as ‘ugly’, according to Kevin. The Graham seed cleaning plant normally has a clean-out rate between 8-10%, this year it is as high as 35%. The drought caused a lot of beans to split and become shrivelled. Apart from being down on yield, the quality is so poor that most farmers are not getting the premium price they normally get for seed quality beans.
The plant here only processed one-third of the amount of bean seed compared to 2017. Now some of the germination test results from the cleaned seed are so low that further production losses are inevitable.
As well as the drought, the price for soya beans is also very low currently as a consequence of Trump’s tariffs. The disagreements between the US and China have caused the price of soya beans to drop to $8/bu compared $11/bu in 2017. Premium for seed quality normally adds $1.25/bu.
Tariff compensation
To help offset the impact of the tariffs, the state is to pay a subsidy which farmers are calling the “Trump Bump”. The soya bean subsidy is calculated as total bushels harvested ÷ 2 then × $1.69. So an acre that averaged 40bu gets a payment of $33.80/ac (40 ÷ 2 = 20 × $1.69).
Corn price is around $3.50/bu, which is only 10c/bu less than last year, and is not really affected by the tariffs. The state has only offered a payment of $0.01/bu. Most farmers seem unlikely to claim this as they do not want to hand over their information on inputs and yields.
Input costs are up compared to 2017, with the main costs being fertiliser (up 3%) and diesel (up 10%). Price of machinery is also up.
John Deere, the main manufacturer in this area, is up 5% for 2019. Labour cost has also increased for 2019 following the midterm elections.
Future expectations
Even if America and China come to an agreement on tariffs, soya bean price will still remain low due to high global supply. The majority of the US had bumper soya crops this year and these would normally be shipped to China. States like North Dakota do not have enough bin storage for beans and farmers have had to build outdoor silos to store them.
It is estimated that the area of soya beans in the US will drop by 4m acres in 2019 while corn area will increase by 3m acres. However, the Rosenbohms will stay with a 50:50 mix due to the fertiliser plan they use. Much of the phosphorus and potassium applied to corn in 2018 should carry over to next year’s soya crop and this will decrease fertiliser costs by about half. Kevin sees this as very important in terms of remaining optimistic following the problems of 2018. A poor year also leaves potential for optimism on yields in 2019.
The big price drop for beans caused by the trade war may mean that some farmers will not be able to farm next year. Low yields and low prices are a deadly combination. The Rosenbohms hope that the seed plant will break even given the low throughput this year. The aim after that is to keep costs to a minimum by maintaining machinery and avoiding new purchases.
Crop insurance
This is the first year in Kevin’s farming history that he will use crop insurance. Insurance is based on the average yields achieved on a farm over the last three years. His average corn yield for the last three years is 210 bu/ac (5.33t/ac).
There are different levels of crop insurance. The Rosenbohms opted for the basic insurance of 55%, which cost $7/ac in 2018. This year the farm averaged 80bu/ac of corn, which is only 38% of the three-year average. So the crop insurance will pay 17% (55% – 38%) or 35bu to get the yield up to 55% of average, which is 115 bu/ac.
Kevin emphasises that crop insurance still allows you to lose money, it just helps to lose a bit less. Farmers can pay more and get a higher percentage cover – this normally goes up in 5% increments up to 75% of average yield.
Application for the 2019 ITLUS/UAS/Rosenbohm internship is now open and application forms can be found on www.ITLUS.ie
The Rosenbohm harvest in Graham finished up on 24 October 2018 and it was one of the worst harvests ever experienced.Yields were back by more than one-third compared to recent years.High rainfall made harvesting difficult at times. Low yields forced the use of the crop insurance option. Bean quality was adversely affected by the weather conditions. 
This is a subscriber-only article
SHARING OPTIONS: