LINDEN, Mo. (DTN) -- Heat continued to visit View From the Cab farmers David Brandt and Tom Tibbits last week. While David saw temperatures around Carroll, Ohio, in the upper 90s, Tom's readings outside of Minneapolis, Kan., shoved the thermometer even higher. Those hot readings may speed crop maturity, but other effects remain unknown.

At least one of Tom's neighbors has begun harvesting corn. Tom will have his first dry-land corn yield results as early as this week. He's already pulled the row crop head out of storage to check it over before the first rows of corn are picked. He'll be using the Deere harvesting head designed for crops such as soybeans and grain sorghum because small ears on this year's corn crop would fall through the deck plates of a conventional corn head. "That's the way a lot of southern Kansas guys do it," he said.

David is working on his machines too, getting ready for fall by checking out the grain dryer, even though his harvest is weeks away. "Everything here is still green," he said. He's also preparing for fall planting of wheat by working on the no-till grain drill with parts of it scattered across the shop floor. There's still plenty of time. Wheat planting can't begin before the Sept. 28 Hessian Fly-free date. Corn silage choppers have been running in the area near David's home. There have been no yield reports on grain content, but tonnage is running below the expected yield of 27 to 28 tons per acre, somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 to 21 tons per acre.

In the meantime along with heat, rain still falls on both farms in what has become the weekly cycle of two or three hot days followed by rain and cooler temperatures. "Hot and busy" is the way David characterizes last week where Thursday and Friday hit highs of 95 to 97 following the Ohio No Till Council Field Day at Minster on Wednesday. About 145 farmers showed up to see and hear more about cover crops. That was preceded by a small group of three Canadian farmers who visited David on Monday. On Saturday, the week was capped by an inch of rain.

The story is much the same on Tom's Kansas farm where 0.80 inches fell last Monday followed by hundred-degree readings a couple of days last week. This week should mark the end of soybean irrigation as the growing season draws to a conclusion. Pods are filling. Sunflowers are standing "pretty decent" while irrigated corn comes closer to black layer. Kernels on the corn Tom checked are shallow. The crop should dry down quickly.

State fairs across the heartland are winding down. Ohio is already counting down to next year's fair with 322 days to go, but in Kansas this week the fair is just starting. Tom will be there to work in booths and help share the word on agriculture in his state. Fifth-graders are being invited to tour Agriland at the Farm Bureau booth. Besides being there, Tom will help out at the corn growers exhibit with tubs of grain for people to see and touch. Video simulators will give them an idea of what it's like to run those big farm machines they see in fields along Kansas roads and highways. A special set of scales will let people know their weight in bushels or compared to livestock. Cotton growers will have a small gin set up so that people can see where all those 100-percent-cotton state fair t-shirts and caps come from.

Interest rates came into the news when Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke indicated another easing of interest rates might be in order. DTN asked David and Tom their opinion on how current interest rates affected farming and agriculture. Tom told DTN his family had taken advantage of lower long-term rates for land and machinery purchases. "We want to get it cheaply as we can. Cash management is very critical on the farm because eventually it (the cost of borrowing) is going to go up," he said. Tom added that low rates make it easier for borrowers stressed by crop losses and other problems.

David feels that even though most farmers pay higher rates for operating loans than long-term bond rates imply, he doesn't think it's a problem. Speaking as a farm-to-consumer producer who relies on customers in the city to buy his produce, David thinks that encouraging new light industry for good jobs is worth more to farmers than cheap interest. But competing foreign countries make building new domestic industries difficult here at home. He remembers a group of Chinese delegates who visited his farm a few years ago to study no-till. Before they left, the visitors told David that no-till would not work for them because with so many people in China they need systems that require more labor, not less.

Rather than cheap interest, David said, "I'd like to see some kind of protection for our industry so that manufacturers here could stay and provide jobs rather than go overseas looking for cheap labor."

Richard Oswald can be reached at richard.oswald@telventdtn.com

(CZ/SK)

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