A change is in the air. It is now officially fall, both meteorologically and astronomically. And, if you like your German beers, it is also the season for Oktoberfest and beer gardens. Not only will the leaves be falling from the trees soon, but the leaves are already falling from many of the crops grown in Will County.
The leaves are not the only thing falling. The price for farm commodities has been slowly falling all summer. There were two long stretches in this calendar year where practically no rain fell on the farm fields in Will County. Some speculate that when the Midwest corn crop is harvested, the evidence will show in many areas that endured drought conditions at some point throughout the summer that corn yield was adversely affected.
Locally, Will County farmers had to endure a significant stretch of hot and dry weather in May and June during the corn crop’s critical growing season. One would be led to believe that if yields do indeed turn out to be lower than currently projected, commodity prices could make a rebound. This could be a bittersweet consolation for any farmer that indeed has low yields due to lack of rain this summer. We will also see very soon if the current spell of wet weather will remain in place and make harvest more difficult than it was last year when a prolonged dry spell remained during the harvest season.
After a stretch of rainy weather alleviated the drought conditions in July. Mother Nature unleashed another major dry spell during August. She even put the exclamation point on that dry period with some extreme heat during our county fair. The soybeans are fast losing their leaves and the combines will be harvesting the fields when the crop is dry and mature. The final yield will verify if the long dry spell in August has hurt yields or if the rains that came in September made the crop rebound for a respectable harvest.
Speaking of respectable harvests. The surprise rainstorm that developed over Symerton about 2 pm on July 5th and traveled northeast over many of my hay fields south of Manhattan with close to 3 inches of rain produced some amazing surprises for 2nd cutting hay crops when they were cut and baled. In my lifetime I do not ever recall having a bigger yield for second cutting hay from a field than I did for the first cutting. I did not think that would even be possible. I guess you can chalk that up to the adage of “learning something new every day.”
With the calendar slipping into October and summer fading away, I wonder if I can find time before harvest to visit an Oktoberfest celebration to see if I can find a German beer that tickles my palate. Pretty soon Mother Nature will be painting a beautiful palette of colors with the trees before those leaves fall as well. (There it is, learned something new today as well, the difference between the spelling of palate and palette.) I should celebrate with a Hefeweizen. That seems like a fitting reward for surviving another one of Mother Natures summer seasons. After all, tis the season.
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