Be Careful What You Wish For

Last Tuesday afternoon I went out to the farm to check the crops. It had been three weeks since we saw a good rain in south-central Minnesota. The corn, beans, peas and sweet corn were not curling or showing signs of moisture stress. But there were 1-inch cracks in the soil. With corn pollination coming up, I sure was hoping for a rain. I was really excited when later on Tuesday evening we received about three-quarters of an inch.

My fieldman with Birdseye Foods in Waseca said they were going to harvest my peas Friday or Saturday. Thursday about 5AM I was pleased to see my farm received another 1.2 inches of rain. I was thinking the field would have a couple days to dry off before they harvested my peas. About an hour after it stopped raining my fieldman called and asked if I could push the mud off the road. Yes, they were harvesting my peas and carting the peas from the pea combines to the trucks on the road.

Here is a classic example of be careful what you wish for! This is a picture of my pea field later on Thursday afternoon. I was surprised that the pea combines did not cut big ruts in the field. It was wet and sloppy on the surface but at least the pea combines carried over the field really well. This is the risk you take growing crops like sweet corn and peas. When they are ready to harvest they are going to do everything they can to get them out of the field.