2020 Spring Farm Outlook

Page 4 2020 Logan County Farm Outlook LINCOLN DAILY NEWS March 19, 2020 W hile farmers always are optimistic about the upcoming growing season, the spring of 2020 brings an even brighter outlook than normal. No, there hasn’t been a dramatic turnaround in the profit potential. But, there has been an improvement in the outlook for timely planting. The year 2019 was one of the more challenging years in recent memory, with a wet fall in 2018 preventing most of the traditional field work and nitrogen applications. This was followed up with an extremely wet spring season causing a significant amount of planting to be pushed into late May and even June. The fall of 2019 saw some late harvest dates due to the late planted crop, but field work was interspersed and was mostly completed. It’s always a good feeling going into planting season with a good head start! Farm Outlook Spring 2020 By John Fulton Even with the extreme late planted crop in 2019, corn yields in Logan County were respectable at 194.2 bushels per acre average according to the National Ag Statistics Service. This places the 10 year average corn yield at 189 bushels per acre. Logan County did not have enough reported yields on the soybean side to get a county yield. If you look at the report, Logan County is included in the other counties portion of the Central Crop Reporting District, which averaged 62.2 bushels per acre. Sangamon County led the state in both corn and soybean yields with 206.3 bushels per acre corn yield, and 65.5 bushels per acre for soybeans. On the economics side, Gary Schnitkey at the University of Illinois had put out the 2020 Crop Budgets for Central Illinois High Productivity Farmland in a corn and soybean rotation. He is estimating corn revenues at $835 per acre, $391 direct costs, $125 power costs, and $74 overhead costs, leaving a net of $245 for land costs and operator profit. Continue 4