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US winter wheat production in 2013 is down 10% from last year, and last year was pretty crappy. It's a little too early to tell for the corn -- the US corn belt experienced a lot of weather whiplash this spring, with drought over the winter, and late spring freezes followed by torrential rains. Corn and soybeans have been planted late and no one is really sure yet how the crop will do. Depends on the weather in July and August.
Arkansas's rice crop and South Carolina's peanut crop are also being hit by the wet, but it's still too early to see what effect those two areas will have on overall national production.
Feed costs are up, with production of spring alfalfa down; the latest crop report from Wisconsin's Agriculture Department shows so far only 2 percent of farmers report their first alfalfa cutting this year, compared to 59 percent last year.
There are some bright spots -- Australia had a great rice crop, Argentina's soybeans came in nicely, there's tons of strawberries in New England and Michigan and New York's apples look good.
In my own little garden here in central Michigan, the potatoes look great, and the peas, cabbage, broccoli, carrots, cauliflower and eggplant look good. I have a *ton* of tomato seedlings, but it's been so chilly out (and life has been busy) so that I haven't gotten many of them into the ground. I still have at least 3 meters of garden bed to dig, and I just don't know how much I can do. I've got a lot of them into containers.
Arkansas's rice crop and South Carolina's peanut crop are also being hit by the wet, but it's still too early to see what effect those two areas will have on overall national production.
Feed costs are up, with production of spring alfalfa down; the latest crop report from Wisconsin's Agriculture Department shows so far only 2 percent of farmers report their first alfalfa cutting this year, compared to 59 percent last year.
There are some bright spots -- Australia had a great rice crop, Argentina's soybeans came in nicely, there's tons of strawberries in New England and Michigan and New York's apples look good.
In my own little garden here in central Michigan, the potatoes look great, and the peas, cabbage, broccoli, carrots, cauliflower and eggplant look good. I have a *ton* of tomato seedlings, but it's been so chilly out (and life has been busy) so that I haven't gotten many of them into the ground. I still have at least 3 meters of garden bed to dig, and I just don't know how much I can do. I've got a lot of them into containers.