St. Louis area farm goes from drought to flood over night

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St. Louis area farm goes from drought to flood over night

Up to twelve inches of rain in the St. Louis area Monday night has farmers in the region concerned about crop conditions.

“We went from drought to flood overnight.”

Daryl Cates grows corn and soybeans in Columbia, Illinois, 15 miles south of St. Louis. He tells Brownfield while they needed some rain, the 6 inches he got on some of his fields was too much.

“I think we might be able to get it soaked up fast enough, I’m not sure. If we get up to 90-95 degrees and there is water sitting on it, that will cook the crop.”

Cates says the rain should help the soybean crop, but recent high temperatures coupled with the rain event definitely hurt his corn.

“I’m hoping corn will yield around 150 bushels per acre. I know ears are smaller and then on some of our ground in the bottoms the crop has already burnt up so we will be lucky to get 20 bushels per acre on the sand ridges.”

Cates serves as Vice President of the American Soybean Association.  

Interview with Daryl Cates

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