In all my years of farming, I have never seen back-to-back growing seasons that were so opposite as the last two. Record drought last year reduced maize yields by about 60% and soya beans by about 50%.

This year we had a lot of snow days. The cattle guys around us ran dangerously low on hay because the winter snows and rainy spring meant winter was long and everything ran very late.

And rain it did. We had our average annual rainfall by June. Between the start of planting in April and the end of June we had 28in of rainfall, so flooding was inevitable.

Conditions last backend meant that no one could apply fall fertiliser, especially anhydrous ammonia. This would inevitably result in logistical challenges, especially for anhydrous application. The floods this spring caused delivery delays and supply disruption problems on a scale that I have never witnessed before. However, dry fertiliser did not have as many issues.

Havoc at the end of May

One week in late May we had extreme rains. All the local rivers exceeded their levees and banks and flooded most of the bottom ground around us.

We had our local Nodaway river actually roll out over the levees and fill the fields. I had never seen that happen before in my lifetime. On our south farm, the neighbours’ levees failed and this back-filled on to us.

We had about 1,000ac flooded at that time. However, most of the water receded within a week to 10 days.

Once the land dried out again, our crew gathered up the debris with our skid steers and piled the material up out of the way.

After all the upheaval and effort our boys were able to plant, or replant, all of our damaged and flooded acres

We initially finished planting maize on 30 April before the big rains started and some of this was subsequently lost during the floods.

Once these fields were cleared, our lads replanted the drowned out corn area until 13 June and then finished planting the soya beans for seed.

After all the upheaval and effort our boys were able to plant, or replant, all of our damaged and flooded acres.

We have been lucky. Our maize crops look to be about two to three weeks late, on average, and our replanted crops look to be about a month late.

Cooler recently

The weather here has been relatively cool in recent weeks and it seems set to continue for a while longer.

This means that the crop is in no hurry to mature and it seems likely that it will need to be put through the dryers this year.

Yield potential looks to be average, which is actually pretty good considering the spring we have had. I am planning on harvesting maize around 20 September and soya beans around 7 October.

Markets

Prices for our maize and soya beans have been very disappointing recently. The trade/tariff war is becoming a headache for us. Ethanol margins are also thin and are a challenge to profits in that sector.

Prices for some of our 2020 inputs are down compared to last year, especially in the case of fertiliser products. MAP (11:22.7:0) fertiliser is quoted to us at about 20% cheaper than last season.

Potash is around the same. Urea is 12% cheaper. UAN (32% liquid N) is about 5% cheaper and we use that for our side dressing on maize.

It is currently projected that we will increase corn and bean acres for 2020 in the US

However, the seed maize price is higher once again, this time by about 7%. Soya bean seed should be about the same as last year, depending on the traits present.

It is currently projected that we will increase corn and bean acres for 2020 in the US and if that happens, prices will be even lower.

Return to old technology

As we look forward to next season we are being forced to step back about 20 years in terms of agri-technology.

A high percentage of the maize we produce carries a waxy trait and this is contracted to an ingredients company called Ingredion for corn starch production.

The corporate owners of Ingredion recently decided that they want to go the non-GMO route, so we are now being asked to grow non-GMO maize varieties.

Both our waxy and conventional maize will now be non-GMO as a result. They had to sweeten the premium to get us growers to accept going backwards in time.

I feel we are actually hurting the environment more when the consumer doesn’t understand the true impacts of perceived food quality

But, we will try it for one year. We must remember that this is still not organic, it is just non-GMO maize.

I fail to understand the consumers who talk about non-GMO ideals.

Farmers who produce the food will be forced to use more chemicals in the process and we will possibly have lower yields as well.

I feel we are actually hurting the environment more when the consumer doesn’t understand the true impacts of perceived food quality. There is very much a non-GMO issue here in the US.

All of the land under water last May was good crop land in front of the Rosenbohm house.

The nett effect is that Rosenbohm Farms will not be growing maize varieties with GMO traits next season, taking us back 20 years in technology terms.

Three-way herbicide resistance

As well as growing crops, we also have a seed assembly and processing business on the farm. This is a soya bean business and we are increasing our seed production.

The latest GM trait in soya beans is called E3 Enlist. We have been producing these beans for three years now and we like the flexibility of being able to spray either 2,4-D, Liberty (glufosinate), or Roundup when needed.

Having three traits in the same variety has been good for us so far, and it should help against resistant weed build-up.