Looks like our soybeans are finished, missed the promise rains last weekend. What was probably record yield potential went downhill in a hurry from August 1st with hot southwest wind and 100F temps. We will have some soybeans, but nothing to brag about. The corn looks to be a different story. Quite a bit of the 100 day corn is being shelled, and the yields reported are impressive, although the reported yields on anything usually are....no one talks about the busts. In a week or two when the more full season 115-118 day corn starts rolling in(traditionally higher yielding) it will be interesting to see how it shapes up. I have heard corn yields up to 180 bushels per acre, very high for eastern Kansas, we aren't like cornbelt states where it is possible to harvest 200 bushel plus dryland corn. For myself, I would be very happy with an average this year of 125 on my corn. The corn I am chopping right now for silage looks very good, I wouldn't be surprised if it was in the low 100s yield wise, it is a silage variety and doesn't tend to yield as high for grain. The milo also looks impressive, more was planted around here this year than has been for the last decade, the early high rainfall kept quite a bit of corn seed in the sack, many(including me) went back to our old favorite feed grain, for its cheaper seed price and drouth tolerance. In the 1980s on through the mid 90s, milo was the king of feedgrains in southeast Kansas, then new more drouth hardy corn hybrids were introduced, and many abandoned milo(for one thing it makes you itch like crazy). With our costs spiraling out of control, milo is going to be getting a bigger share of my acres, simply because it is cheaper to grow, and stands our ever present dry July and Augusts.
Fall calving is well underway for me, about 30 on the ground. The biggest problem is the dust and pollen causing bad eyes. We doctor them with mastitis infusions, is that common in the UK I wonder? Our native bluestem grass is seeding out, we will have some of the tallest grass in years this fall, on some of the better dirt the seed heads are chest high. If this dry weather holds on through winter and into next spring, it will make for some very aggresive and fast moving prairie fires. Once our first frost comes around the middle of October, our landscape will go from its green color today, to an almost red color, or at least reddish, then onto brown with only the winter wheat being green through the winter. For the most part, life will be uneventful, but on dry windy days a careless match or trash fire can bring chaos, tinder dry grass 2 to 3 feet high will carry fire much faster than a man can run.