Southern Illinois crop outlook may be the success story of 2020

This year certainly hasn't been made for good news. There are plenty of running jokes about many of the negative things we've seen since the beginning of the year.

Of course, sometimes bad news is what you make of it, and there's still plenty of good news to go around for the rest of the year.

One of the positives for this year may be the crop results our local farmers get.

If you're driving up and down Illinois 13, whether it's between Harrisburg and Shawneetown or going west toward Marion, those cornfields are either turning brown or already are to that point. Quite a few soybean fields also are starting to turn.

The fall harvest season is upon us.

Some farmers already have started shelling corn. In Gallatin County I know of at least one field where a combine has started. I've been told that on Illinois 142 north of Eldorado, some farmers also have started there.

I talk to several different farmers throughout the year, and there was an indication this might be a great harvest year early on.

One farmer told me, after literally knocking on wood, this may be the best season his farm ever has seen. It was fairly early in the summer at the time, and he had reason to be cautious. The weather can change with little warning, and until corn, beans or other crops are safely in, a lot can go wrong.

For instance, our recent brush with Hurricane Laura had quite a few farmers losing sleep. The storm made landfall in Louisiana and turned northwest before altering its path into a widely sweeping arc that just caught the southern end of southern Illinois. Predictions had 40 to 50 mph sustained winds, which are as devastating to a crop field as they are to everything else.

This news came on the heels of a devastating derecho that damaged millions of dollars worth of crops in Iowa.

But, it didn't happen. It didn't even rain in parts of Saline County.

Prolonged damp weather is keeping some farmers from getting started this week, but as long as it dries out in the next few days, you'll start to see quite a few farmers in the fields next week.

Hopefully, the good conditions will continue until all the crops are out.

We've had some bad things happen this year, and there have been interruptions in the food chain. Let's hope things go as smoothly as possible for our farmers, because we sure don't need any other major ag disruptions.