News

USDA visits drought stricken fields

USDA Undersecretary for Farm and Foreign Agricultural Services, Michael Scuse will be in the Eastern Corn Belt this week touring drought affected fields.  One of his stops is at Brian Scott’s farm located in White County, Ind. 

Scott tells Brownfield “we just keep missing rains”.  “Beans are starting to show stress where they hadn’t before and corn is showing a lot of stress,” he says.  “We pulled some ears this morning – some of them look pretty decent and some of them look pretty bad and occasionally you can find a plant that doesn’t have one at all.”

He notes they’ll start the Indiana leg in Fort Wayne on Wednesday…  And Scott says the fields they’re scheduled to see are the worst of what he has.  “It’s really just starting to shrivel up and the bottom couple of leaves are burnt up and starting to fall off in some fields,” he says.  “And of course everyone worries about pollination.”

Scuse will wrap up his Indiana visits in Johnson County on Thursday.