What a mess. Although a few farmers in our area have been able to plant corn and soybeans in some of their better drained fields, the vast majority of folks continue to be faced with saturated soils and rainy forecasts, and not a thing planted.

Those who only grain farm should consider the additional challenges faced by those with livestock and or grow forages. A limited amount of fescue was baled a couple of weeks ago. The rest of the forage grasses are now heading, dramatically reducing the feed value of the hay. Our legumes will soon be flowering, once again cutting the quality of hay made from those maturing stands. Prior to corn and soybean planting, manure needs to be distributed to crop land. With manure storage facilities filled, application must occur prior to other field work. We heard of several incidences last week where manure was being tanked from close to full facilities to other locations, between 3 and 20 miles.

On several recent rainy days, farmers attended crop insurance meetings. With continued wet soil conditions, farmers are evaluating whether to plant corn, switch to soybeans, or opt for preventative planting crop insurance payments. Ohio State University Extension has developed the decision aid, “Estimated Yield and Profit by Planting Date – Corn, Soybeans or Preventative Planting Crop Insurance” which is a downloadable Excel spreadsheet. It allows farmers to enter their own production information to determine which choice might be best for their operation.

Many factors enter into this critical decision. Actual planting date and potential yield loss associated with later planting, relative yield potential of corn and soybeans of the farm, relative prices of corn and soybeans, market basis differences due to a later harvested crop, potential savings of crop inputs due to a later planting date, potentially higher costs of grain drying, and crop insurance APH yield and coverage level are some of the major factors impacting a producers decision.

This decision aid allows users to enter their own assumptions about maximum yield potential, harvest market prices, input costs, and crop insurance coverage levels. Since your numbers are different than anyone else, it is very important to take the time to analyze your own situation.

Chris Bruynis, Extension Educator and Barry Ward, Leader Production Business Management developed the “Estimated Yield and Profit by Planting Date – Corn, Soybeans or Preventative Planting Crop Insurance”. This online tool was created using historical yield data for Ohio to determine potential corn and soybean yields for late planted crops. Since the data in this decision aid is historical and yield losses with current technology and productions methods may not be as limiting, the profit estimates are conservative. Unforeseen weather conditions during the remainder of the growing season may cause a different outcome from these initial estimates.

Examples include the 2009 growing season when favorable weather conditions allowed for better than predicted crop yields after a late planting season while the 2002 growing season with adverse growing conditions after a late planting season caused poor yield over much of Ohio. The model also provides a chart on typical grain moistures at later planting dates allowing the user to adjust the drying charges.

The “Estimated Yield and Profit by Planting Date – Corn, Soybeans or Preventative Planting Crop Insurance” OSU Extension Decision Aid can be downloaded from the Ohio Ag Manager (OAM) homepage at http://ohioagmanager.osu.edu

This model was patterned after the decision aid created by Ryan Batts, Emerson Nafziger, and Gary Schnitkey at the University of Illinois located at www.farmdoc.illinois.edu/fasttools/index.asp
We all hope favorable weather comes soon.

The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author, but not necessarily those of Farm World. Readers with questions or comments for Roger Bender may write to him in care of this publication.