Crop Report from 2019
Corn producers rushed to finish planting -- or replanting -- as much as sunny weather has allowed so far in May.
STONEVILLE, Miss. -- The third week of March is usually the beginning of rice planting season in Mississippi, but fields were not dry enough to hold tractors until May in most locations.
Many growers were still scrambling to get rice in the ground by early June due to unusually high rain amounts in the first quarter of 2019. While more than 90 percent of the crop had been planted as of June 3, only 74 percent had emerged, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. This is well behind the five-year average of 92 percent emerged by this date.
Some Mississippi watermelon producers lost crops or got a late start because of wet spring weather. But consumers should find the sweet, summer treats on shelves in time for the July 4 holiday.
All of Mississippi’s 2019 cotton crop has emerged, but it’s off to a slow start.
Of approximately 700,000 acres of cotton planted statewide this year, 57% is rated fair or worse by the U.S. Department of Agriculture as of July 8.
The process of planting this year’s soybean crop in Mississippi has been anything but normal.
The only consistent variable has been rain, and a lot of it -- from an unusually wet winter and spring to the stormwater the state received from Hurricane Barry. Growers have done their best to plant in tight windows of time when both the clouds and the ground were dry. A long, stop-start planting season has been the result.
The challenges Mississippi catfish farmers face in 2019 are many, but growth of one of the state’s eight processing facilities is one positive sign for the industry.
A difficult planting season followed by heavy rains and drainage issues challenged corn producers, but growers are still expected to produce a good crop despite these tough conditions.
Spring rains created two sweet potato crops in Mississippi, and the later-planted crop is shaping up to be better than the first as harvests get underway.
Parts of Mississippi’s landscape are turning white, but unlike some northern areas, this coloration is caused by cotton bolls opening for harvest, not snow accumulation.
Producers are tracing the mixed results they see from the 2019 Mississippi soybean harvest back to early struggles getting the crop started.
Mississippians pondering ideas for a side business could consider investing in land and planting stem cuttings of Leyland and Murray cypress trees.