First Day on the Crop Tour
I got into the Kansas City airport yesterday about an hour late due to mechanical issues. My partner in the farm picked me up and we then traveled about 350 miles to Sioux Falls and met up with the Pro Farmer Crop Tour participants. There were about 30 people at the meeting and we had about an hour and half meeting to discuss how to do the counts, who were were traveling with, etc.
We left Sioux Falls this morning with about 8 different groups traveling southeastern South Dakota and Center Nebraska. We headed west on I-90 to about 10 miles west of Mitchell and then turned south toward Nebraska. Our first two corn fields that we checked turned out to be the worst ones we say all day with yields much less than 100 bushels per acre. We sampled about 7 or 8 fields in South Dakota and crossed the Missouri River into Nebraska at Fort Randall Dam.
We made a couple of quick stops right after crossing the river and we did not see another corn or bean field for at least 35 or 40 miles traveling through most of Holt County. Almost all of the fields in South Dakota were dry-land, whereas, almost all of the fields in Nebraska were irrigated ground. We saw a couple of fields that should yield more than 200 bushels but all in all, I would say most were in the 120 to 175 range. We made a total of about 18 corn stops and 17 bean stops.
Talking with a farmer from Illinois that was in the car with us, he thought the yields we saw today were slightly lower than last year.
I am on the way to meet up with all of the groups to see how they saw things and will write another post tonight after that meeting.
Paul Neiffer is a certified public accountant and business advisor specializing in income taxation, accounting services, and succession planning for farmers and agribusiness processors. Paul is a principal with CliftonLarsonAllen in Walla Walla, Washington, as well as a regular speaker at national conferences and contributor at agweb.com. Raised on a farm in central Washington, he has been immersed in the ag industry his entire life, including the last 30 years professionally. Paul and his wife purchase an 180 acre ranch in 2016 and enjoy keeping it full of animals.
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