Minnesota Farmer

There has been a bit of talk lately of what this last years crop year was and what next years will  be like.  What is past is always a bit easier to know.

A month ago we started work on a new barn.  Part of the process was to dig a rather large hole 4 feet deep.  The clay under the top soil was dry.  It made for some very easy digging.  What does that have to do with next year and what does that say about this years crop.

Actually it says more about last years crop than next years.  It tells me that we were very lucky with the crop we got.  For next year we have a lot of time to before we can even guess what will be.

Back in May a Minnesota Public Radio reporter talked to me about the prospects for the future with an early planting and a future of a very large crop.  You can read that story here <http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2012/05/24/corn-crop-outlook/&gt; When he asked me what I thought of the USDA prediction of a large crop, I laughed and said they were guessing.  A few months later he came back to talk to me and the talk was not about a record crop and depressed prices, but of a short crop and prices at historically high levels for months now.  That story is here <http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2012/11/15/business/2012-minnesota-crop-report/&gt;

So much changed just weeks after the May interview and so much can change now.  Historically we have only a 5% chance of a drought this next year, yet the least expected option often happens.  So how do we get from dust to a banner crop?  Rain.

We will get rain.  If it is enough is not in our hands.  I was blessed to be raised in a part of the country that has small chance of a drought, but much has changed in my lifetime.  Centuries of man’s wanton waste of the energy resources of our earth have tipped us into new territory.  I hesitate to try to predict the unpredictable.

In the meantime I will plan and prepare.  The soil is here, I will protect it.  The rain will fall, I will use what is given to me.  The sun will shine and plants will use it.  God willing there will be a harvest again next year.

Michael