Although it feels like we just took the crops off the fields, we are now in the middle of planting season. This year we’re right on schedule. It’s the middle of May and we have all of the hay and alfalfa seed in and over half the corn in the ground. We haven’t touched the soybeans yet. Soybeans aren’t as hardy of a crop as corn. If the soybean plants come up and there’s a late frost, the whole plant will die and need to be replanted. Corn is a lot hardier. If there is a late frost after the corn is up, the corn will be able to survive.
A lot of planning goes into the planting season that we’re in right now. We spend a lot of time analyzing how much feed we’ve used in the last year, considering how many animals we have, and looking at the yield histories of our fields. We have to make sure that we plant enough now so that when we harvest this fall, we’ll have enough feed to last through to the next harvest season.
We do all of this planning, but there is one big factor that we can’t control – Mother Nature. We can’t predict what kind of year we’ll have. Will it be a drought? Will it be a bumper crop? When we have a really good year, we need to be smart and make sure those good years carry us through the bad ones.
Here’s to hoping Mother Nature is on our side this summer.
