Overall, planting was completed on a timely basis with excellent soil preparation conditions to plant in to. Since planting, we have had excessive rainfall and cool temperatures. This has hindered field  operations and slowed plant development. Most of the fields have small  drowned-out areas, which are not large enough to justify replanting. Weed  control has been good but we will need a week of calm dry weather to finish up. Pre-emerge applications have worked very well in the corn, soybeans and  sunflowers. Following is a more detailed breakdown of each crop.

CORN

A total of 542 acres of corn was planted between April 26 and May 7. Early planted corn  emerged quickly with the later planted corn emerging much slower due to cooler  weather and heavy rains. Most of the corn is now in the 5-leaf or better stage,  but is starting to show some stress from the excessive moisture. Ninety percent  of the corn has been sprayed and sidedressing of the remaining nitrogen is just  getting underway. With a little heat and dry weather the corn should be better  than knee high by the fourth of July. New crop cash price for #2 corn today is at $2.05.

SUNFLOWERS

170  acres of flowers were planted May 4 and May 5 under very ideal soil conditions.  Nitrogen and herbicide were applied and incorporated ahead of planting. The  flowers emerged slowly but have really stretched upwards the past two weeks.  They have maintained excellent color, but are shorter where the water ponded.  Plant height is at 12-14 inches. One cultivation is still necessary to catch the  weed escapes and will need to be done in the very near future as the plants will  now grow very fast. Contract price for the sunflower seed is $.12/lb.

SOYBEANS

This  year we have a total of 574 acres of soybeans with planting finished up on May  11. Emergence looks very good at this point with again some dead areas due to  flooding. 260 acres were sprayed pre-emerge with the balance designated for  post-emerge treatment. This activity will need to be completed over the next  week or so to ensure proper timing. The weather report does not look too  promising however. New crop cash price today is at $4.85.

SWEET CORN

Sweet corn was planted May 24 under poor conditions. Of the 130 acres planted  there is approximately 10 acres that did not emerge due to flooding. The areas,  which were not under water, have respectable populations. Post-emerge weed  control is planned and will have to be completed in a week or two. We have fared  better than some other area producers who are contemplating completely  replanting all their sweet corn due to poor emergence. The crisp n sweet variety  we put in is known to be a tough variety to get out of the ground and to get  good tonnage from so this will be an interesting test to see how it actually  handles all this adverse weather.

WINTER WHEAT

All of the 95 acres of wheat planted last October is in good shape. This was the  first time we no-tilled all the wheat following soybeans and it is looking to be  a good system for us. Stand density is excellent and plant height is good. The  wheat is completely headed out and we are looking at a mid-July harvest window.  The price of wheat is still poor at $2.20 delivered to Milwaukee new crop. Most  of the straw has been spoken for by area dairy farmers, so it should not be a  problem getting rid of it. Hopefully we get a nice stretch of weather to get it  combined and get the straw off the fields.