High temperatures that some days hit triple digits combined with little rainfall during the growing season was a one-two punch on many Lebanon County farms that produce corn and soybeans.
That’s the assessment of Penn State Cooperative Extension following the annual Crop Tour, which was conducted last week by agricultural officials and volunteers. The tour’s goal is to establish a baseline of what cooperative extension officials believe those crop harvests will be this fall in the Lebanon Valley as well as current crop health assessments.
“The general theme is that the drought dramatically impacted the yields and the five-year (production) average,” said McFeaters. “This year, we’re not estimating soybean yields. We’re estimating the number of pods and the number of seeds (soybeans) per acre.”
Farmers who participated in the crop analysis provide data to the extension office in advance of the tour. One data point is when their crops were planted this year.
“It’s a fat, short year,” said Tyler McFeaters, education program specialist for the Penn State Cooperative Extension’s southeastern office, about the 2024 growing season. “The best of what we’re seeing is 200 bushels of corn (per acre) while last year it was 250 bushels. We also didn’t stop and test some that we drove by, but in those fields there were probably 70 bushels.”
This year, McFeaters said, it appears that the later a farmer planted his crops, the better the harvest will be this season. Corn and soybeans are two crops that are commonly fed to livestock or sold to market.
LebTown asked why the growing season matters given the unpredictability of weather from one year to the next. Trying to guess when to plant crops seems as fruitless as trying to predict when to buy or sell in the stock market.
“That’s why we emphasize to farmers to diversify their planting dates,” said McFeaters. “We tell them to plant some crops early, some a little later and some late.”
In general, however, crops that were planted late this year will most likely lead to higher yields. It is impossible to apply crop-production absolutes since so many factors are involved, especially in a weather-dependent industry like agriculture. However, general conclusions can still be made about the growing season.
“A theme that we’ve been seeing is that the later planted stuff looks better,” said McFeaters, who noted that’s the opposite of planting philosophy. “There’s a big push for early planting because you can then get your growing degree days faster and you can harvest faster. Early planting is what you want to do to push for high yields is basically what they (farmers) are being told. But with these droughts, you are sometimes stuck and the crop can’t move (grow) anyways.”
Based on analysis of samples pulled from the fields for both crops, McFeaters is able to draw conclusions about their health, including damage caused by pathogens, insects and other predators like deer.
McFeaters readily admits that his main interest is in pathogens impacting the crops since that’s his expertise and the work he performs on a daily basis.
“A goal is to check crop conditions – insects, disease, overall health – anything that might be going wrong with the crop,” said McFeaters. “As a plant pathologist, you are always interested in disease. The agronomics are all right, but I’m really about the fungus.”
McFeaters pointed out to LebTown a fairly recent disease that has invaded the heartland first and has been found more recently in Lebanon County. Tar Spot fungus is a pathogen that came from Central America, was first spotted in Indiana in 2015, then was found in Pennsylvania in 2020.
It looks like its name suggests: small, raised black circular spots that dot a corn leaf. If left untreated, yields can be lowered by 60 bushels per acre, according to agronomists at Purdue University in Indiana.
“It can overwinter in crop residue,” said McFeaters. “It showed up first (in Pennsylvania) in soybean residue. There are current fungicides that will treat it.”
Fortunately for local producers, the pathogen has only been present in August or September vs. June or July, which would lead to more severe crop damage since that’s when the crop’s biggest growth periods occur.
“So it’s not really not necessarily the severity of it but when the time it comes in,” added McFeaters. “But it is down in severity this year as well, mostly because of the drought. We don’t know a lot about this pathogen, it is really an interesting one. … We really don’t know the rhyme or reason for this pathogen. Why did it show up first in soybean residue when there was no corn residue present? We don’t really know.”
Disease, animals and pathogens are hard enough on crops let alone a drought. The group visited a farm in Heidelberg Township that irrigates most of its fields and pulled samples from areas that did and did not receive irrigation.
The irrigated section is expected to yield 246 bushels of corn per acre vs. 202 bushels for the non-irrigated section.
LebTown asked McFeaters about the geographical diversity of the tour, which covered seven farms in every quadrant of Lebanon County. He said that’s because farms south of Route 422 where the soil is limestone-based produces higher yields than soils north of that highway that are shale-based.
That occurs because limestone soils hold moisture better than the less porous shale soils that are throughout the northern section of the Lebanon Valley.
“Some of the farms in the northern part of the county won’t be shooting for the same yields as farms in the southern part of the county where the better limestone soil is located,” said McFeaters. “In the shale ground, they don’t have the same water-holding capacity, so they are going to be much more impacted by the drought.”
Many farmers who may have lower yields are opting this year to put their corn into silage. Silage is used as a ruminant for animals like dairy and beef cattle. “We’re already into the silage chopping season, there’s quite a few producers doing that,” added McFeaters.
Lower yields due to the drought is unwelcome news no matter where a producer is located. That situation is exacerbated when commodity prices are down, like they are this year.
James Tomanelli, business development officer for Fulton Bank, said corn prices have dropped from $7 per bushel to below $4 per bushel. The price of corn as of Aug. 28 was $3.6525 per bushel, according to an internet search of corn commodities.
Tomanelli, who volunteered on the tour to gather data as part of the bank’s volunteer service program, offered some insight on the financial impacts of the drought.
“So we could expect that there might be a higher line of credit utilization,” he said. “They typically pay for their inputs in the fall because that’s when the biggest discount periods are. So, prime is at 8.5 percent – most lines are at 8.5 percent. They might get a 9 or 10 percent discount or more to prepay their seed and fertilizer for this fall, but they’re not going to have crop sales that are going to enable them to do that as they readily had in years before.”
Tomanelli noted another expense is land rental, which is often due for renewal in the fall.
“There may be some financial impacts for guys who aren’t as big (as other farms) or as savvy as businessmen,” he added.
Given that farmers are harvesting crops earlier than normal this season, they may be tempted to plant wheat, barley and other small grains sooner rather than later. McFeaters said Penn State extension officials are recommending farmers to wait until mid- to late September to plant those crops.
“They really should wait until Sept. 15 for barley, that is, and about Sept. 30 for wheat,” he said. “If you plant too early, there are pests that can come on and affect that crop.”
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