Bill Bayliss – Logan County

Our beans look absolutely wonderful — I don’t know how they could look much better at this point. It appears to be as good a year as I could ask for in my area. I’ve seen bean plants that look beautiful and have a couple inches of new growth on top with blooms. We farm in three different counties and it all looks pretty good, but around home is almost perfect.

Our rain came about a half inch to an inch at a time, we had maybe one two-inch rain all summer. We were a little dry about the middle of June, just when you want to be, so the roots set deeper. Generally, about 20 miles around here things look good, but I’ve talked to some other folks that aren’t as fortunate this year, so we’re thankful for the blessings and know that next year might be the opposite.

Weed control worked very well. There’s an occasional weedy field, but most fields look clean. With insect pressure we started to have some problems, but a lot of operations sprayed fungicide and insecticide with a plane at the beginning of August, so we’re really just about picture perfect.

Bill Bateson – Hancock County

My early-May planted beans are in really good shape and the pods are set on those. The later-May beans are flowering and the pods coming on are looking really good, too. Our moisture is excellent in my area of southern Hancock County. We’ve had not a lot of rain at one time — just a tenth or two. However, I know the rains have been spotty for others; you don’t have to go more than 10 miles and they have not had the rain we have. Now we’re just looking for a few inches of rain in August to finish things out.

Disease pressure has been low. Normally I would spray some plant health fungicide and insecticide, but I didn’t see a need for it this year. I haven’t done a pod count yet, but there’s minimal weed pressure. If these rains continue, we could see a little more, but I don’t think there will be enough to get back out there and spray until after harvest.

Jeff Magyar – Ashtabula County

The early-planted beans are looking good, but then we got rained out and after that it got dry in our area. Some beans waited a week for water to germinate, but now they look pretty good. If you weren’t done by mid-June, you had to wait until July. I was surprised how many people were planting into July and those late beans are just now starting to take off.

We don’t have much weed pressure and the beans are pretty clean. A lot went in the last part of June. Those late planted beans are going to have to have a perfect August to have a decent harvest.
The early-beans look really good, and if people have any, it may mean an early harvest.

Amy Sigg Davis – Warren County

The beans around here look really good. We were a little slow getting them in, in some cases. Rain was spotty and there’s been weed pressure we had to deal with. Those of us that spray are in good shape and those who had non-GMO have some weed pressure.

We’ve had sprinkling rains that keeps the leaves washed off and keeps the surface soil damp. We really haven’t had a gully washer. I know it’s been spotty from folks commenting about how much they got and where they haven’t had any rain.

From driving around and looking at the crops, they look good. It’ll probably be a normal harvest, but it depends so much on the temp and rains we get in the next couple weeks. That could slow down the drying out.