Posted June 19, 2024 | By: Nutrien Ag Solutions

Crop Consultant Burke Lane based out of Paris, Texas, joins Agronomy for your Acres to discuss the crop challenges growers are facing in Northeast Texas.

Episode Transcript:

Farm Progress broadcast presents this Week in Agribusiness Serving America's most essential industry brought to you by Case IH solutions for every challenge, equipment for every farm Case IH built by farmers.  Over the past several weeks, waves of severe weather have impacted North Texas, and that's changing the agronomic equation for growers in the region. That's the focus of this week's Agronomy for your Acres with the experts from Nutrien Ag Solutions. We're talking with Burke Lane. He is a Crop Consultant based out of Paris, Texas. And Burke, fill us in. What's the crop year been like for growers in Northeast Texas?

Well, it's been pretty rough this year. First off, you always say, well, it can't be any worse than it was last year. And I've just got to quit saying that because 2024 started off pretty rough and is continuing to head that way. We had a small wind at the end of February to get started. We're fighting borderline soil temperature being a little low and some are likely to start. And that was pretty much a good thing from the 1st of March till now. We've just had excessive amounts of rainfall. I mean, if it rained one inch, it rained five inches, we weren't getting any small amounts of rain, so it was hard to get out there and plant when you knew you had four or five inches of rain coming and rainfall wasn't the only problems we had. We had hail events, hail ranging anywhere from pea size to tennis ball size hail, high winds, 70 mile an hour plus winds. And then we've even thrown a couple tornadoes in there. Boy, everything, including the kitchen sink down there in North Texas, Burke. So with that being the case with that much moisture, what are farmers doing in the field now?

Well, right now we've laid down corn, we’re V10 to R3. So all the fertility is done, the herbicide applications are done. We're finishing up on some fungicide applications and Afla-Guard, we just wrapped up sorghum and cotton planting. Soybeans are still getting put in the ground. Right now is about our best planting conditions. So we have crops anywhere from just emerging to early stages of reproduction like R1 and we're trying to get out wheat. It's been raining for a long time, so all the rain, every time it rains, it lowers the test way and low test wheats. Wheat that’s still standing good is sprouted and where the farmers are getting hit pretty good on it. So we have 4% or more on sprouts, that’s $2 a bushel dock. So they're having some severe dockage on the wheat that they are taking to town. That's a big hit. Burke, before we let you go real quick, are you concerned about insect pressure this year in your region?

Yes, it seems like with the rainfall and everything that we've had, it kind of keeps them at bay. And then when the weather starts lining out, the insect numbers go to increasing pretty rapidly. We looked at some soybeans yesterday. Stink bug pressure is coming up. So it's going to be something to keep an eye on. It certainly is. Things to watch this year, folks. Keep up to speed and learn more at NutrienAgSolutions.com