If rain has kept you from planting fall crops, FSA can help

Hello Again!

I sat at a softball field watching my youngest daughter play recently. I sat under an umbrella with a blanket and two sweatshirts, while she stood on the field in her uniform with a few layers underneath getting soaked by the rain.

Mud

The rain just kept rolling in and out for all three of the games. I watched as three little boys were playing with a football, patiently waiting while their sisters were on the field. Things started out OK, just throwing the football back and forth, until a bad throw landed the ball in a mud puddle.

Within minutes they had splashed, thrown and basically rolled in that puddle. Of course their parents were blissfully unaware that right behind them these boys had turned into little mud pies.

When one of the fathers turned around to take a peek to see what they were up too, and caught sight of them, needless to say he was not too happy with their current condition.

It made me laugh thinking how many times have you heard a parent say to their child, “don’t get dirty,” “get out of the puddle,” or “try not to get muddy.”

Countless times I have heard it, and countless times I have said it, and yet here we are again deep into harvest and the farmers are out in the fields “playing” in the mud.

It has been a difficult year, spring was not kind and fall seems to be determined to keep us on our toes.

Here at the Farm Service Agency we know that producers should be planting wheat right now, but due to the weather, it seems nearly impossible to get crops off let alone the next crop planted.

Fall wheat

We wanted to remind you that a northeast Ohio producer had until the final Federal Crop Insurance Corporation (FCIC) planting date of Oct. 20 to timely plant fall wheat.

Producers and farmers who were prevented from planting wheat by the final planting date have until Nov. 4 to visit their local FSA county office and report the prevented planting acreage.

Prevented planting is defined as the inability to plant the intended crop acreage with the proper equipment during the established planting period for the crop type because of a natural disaster (does not include late maturing crops due to the late spring planting of 2011 crops).

Producers, who request prevented planting acreage credit, must report the acreage on an FSA-578 and complete a manual CCC-576, part B, within 15 calendar days after the final planting date.

Visit your local FSA county office if a natural disaster condition has prevented you from planting wheat this fall.

Late maturing crops have also been a problem this year. With the late plantings, crops are still in the field with some signs of disease and stress.

Soybeans have an additional stress with a pest call an aphid.

The only thing we have left is a killing frost, let’s hope we don’t see that until January.

That’s all for now,

FSA Andy