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Indiana farmer says investments in crop health has made a difference

An Indiana grain and dairy farmer says investing in crop health has been beneficial in a tough growing season. 

Lance Sommer farms in the northeast part of the state.  He says a dry spell late in the growing season had a huge impact on his crops this year. “We were all set for a great crop, now we’re closer to just a good crop,” he says.  

He tells Brownfield standability has become more of an issue.  “Take the big wind event that just happened in the last week due to the hurricane,” he says.  “Using a fungicide pass or two on greatly increased the standability this year.  That was very helpful.”

Sommer says they wrapped up silage harvest a couple of weeks ago, and they just started cutting soybeans. “The beans were 9.5 to 10 percent moisture later in the day,” he says.  “The beans were too dry, so we were very thankful for the rain that just came up to give us a little moisture.”

He says so far, yields have been less than he expected.