Blazing heat and sparse rainfall have significantly lowered yields for most corn farmers. Rather than the typical plump ears that swell inside their husks in July, this year’s crop is stunted. Spindly stalks and small cobs with fewer kernels will make a poor payday when the grain trucks start rolling into the storage elevators later this month.
Farmers have already shredded hundreds, even thousands of acres. They have either plowed under the brittle brown stems, or baled it like hay for livestock feed.
Situated in the small farming community of Holland, Kenneth Guthrie runs a grain storage company that buys much of the corn grown in the Blacklands, a rich farming belt that runs through Bell, Milam and Williamson counties. He talks to farmers daily, and often drives the countryside, observing conditions.
“There’s some feed value to it. It won’t be a total loss, and of course they’ll collect a certain amount of insurance, but it’s going to be a terrible year,” Guthrie said.
This is the worst year for farmers that Guthrie has seen in about a decade.
“This corn, some it got just little old stubs on it. It’s not going to make anything. Some of it didn’t even put on an ear,” Guthrie said. “This is one of the worst I’ve seen in 10 years or longer, like I say, everything just burned up.”
Corn farmers typically begin harvesting in mid-July. Although few have brought in their crop to local grain buyers, field conditions have most farmers bracing themselves for a grim year.
Depending on fickle rainfall, some areas fared better than others. One side of the road, or an adjacent pasture, could have received enough moisture to make a crop while nearby the situation looks hopeless. Overall, Mother Nature was kinder to the Temple area, farmers say, and the further south you go, the drier it gets. Southbound on Texas 95, the corn crop grows steadily worse.
Michael Kurtz, a fourth-generation Bell County farmer, said he anticipates harvesting about half what the family operation did last year. In a good year, that means 100 or more bushels an acre. This year he expects to harvest between 50 and 80 bushels an acre. (A bushel of grain corn would fill an eight-gallon bucket.)
Over near Westphalia, Curtis Kahlig said his corn crop would definitely be less than last year. Conditions looked OK until mid-May, until the rain quit falling.
“Too much heat too soon, and too little rainfall to go with it,” Kahlig said. “When we started to get into those 100-degree temperatures, that caused it to go (downhill) pretty quick. That’s how it is when you’re dryland farming. You’re at the mercy of Mother Nature. As a general rule, I think everybody came up short on moisture.”
Ironically, rainfall at this stage would make the situation worse. Stressed corn is susceptible to a fungus called aflatoxin that grows in wet conditions. Following summer rainfall last year, aflatoxin sprouted. This can cost farmers money because prices are adjusted downward if aflatoxin tests high in their corn.
Also stacked against the farmer this year, corn prices have dropped by about half, from around $6 to $3 per bushel.
Most of the corn grown in Central Texas is used for making animal feed.
