Rain Soon?

Saturday afternoon I went out to the farm to scout the corn, soybeans, sweet corn and peas. I was checking my weed control, any signs of insect feeding and the progress of the crops. Agronomists with Birds-Eye-Foods take care of all the insect scouting for the peas and sweet corn. If needed they will spray the fields. One crop pest I was really checking for was soybean aphids. Before very long they will be showing up in soybean fields. It seems like they are more of a problem in dry years.

It has gotten a little dry. It sure would be nice if we would get an inch of rain soon. I did not see any moisture stress on any of the crops until I drove up the driveway at the farm. The first few rows of corn along the windbreak were showing moisture stress. Notice the curled leaves on the corn next to the trees compared to the corn rows farther out in the field. I am sure the tree roots have taken a lot of the moisture out of the top soil and maybe the subsoil too. It looks like the corn will be shooting tassels in about 10 days. That is a critical time in corn development so it would be great to get an inch of rain.