Each year excessive rain, floods, hail, tornadoes, and other calamities of nature create the need to replant crops, often later in the season than you would like.

After an April that brought record rainfall to much of Indiana and Ohio, climatologists agree the weather pattern is improving - a welcome change for farmers in both states.

Managing editor John Dobberstein and I are visiting two western Iowa no-tillers today on the final day of a 3-day farm tour around Omaha, Neb. We started with two visits near Lincoln, Neb., on Monday; then visited no-tillers in southeast Nebraska, northwest Missouri and southwest Iowa on Tuesday.

Corn production is estimated at 12.4 billion bushels, and soybean production totaled 3.33 billion bushels, according to the USDA.

The more recent strength in corn prices is related to concerns that the U.S. average yield may fall short of the USDA’s August 12 forecast of 165 bushels.

Rainy weather and cooler-than-normal summer temperatures have resulted in a white mold outbreak in soybeans throughout parts of the Midwest. For Ohio growers, this is the first major outbreak of white mold in the state in nearly a decade.