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Thumb of Michigan | Been faced with the same quandry more times than I like to remember. Always a crap shoot, no matter which way you decide to go. For us, maintaining the soil integrity of long term no-till is pretty important. We're not tied into a drop dead, gotta have the crop in the bin date regardless of the weather conditions.
In 1986, we had something over a foot or more of rain in Septemeber. Try very hard to forget that year, it may have been closer to a couple of feet. Anyway, we followed the herd and installed RWA on the combine, bought bigger tow ropes, and proceded to screw up a whole bunch of ground. Felt the effects for at least 3 years later in reduced yields. Had a couple of neighbors take a little different course. They decided it was a perfect time to take that western hunting trip they always dreamed about. Stayed a week longer than planned, even. Came home to frozen soil, never left a track, and had a much more pleasurable and less stressfull September/ October than everyone else did. And they didn't give up a # of crop doing it.
Few years ago (1992?) , we were faced with very wet corn. Something north of 42% in November. And about the same TW. Wet rainy cold weather to boot. Did 40 acres, put a pencil to it, it was costing me over $32 out of pocket for the privelage of harvesting and drying my corn. I don't like doing that. In that case, we waited until Febuary. Lost 1/2 the moisture, ground was hard, even made a couple of bucks that year. But, I'm not going to try and convince you that its easy sitting in the house watching Christmas shows with the kids while the neighbor goes by with his last load of corn. And I had 40 acres done.
In both of those examples, the crop was holding up well right where it was. And the value was by far less than today. Both of those things are the first thing to consider of course. Every time I leave something standing for a while, the old timers will always elude to some October blizzard a 100 years ago that buried 12' tall corn or some such thing. Always a possibility I guess, but I've never had that happen here. yet, anyway. And they didn't have crop insurance back then, either.
You could wait and be a hero, or wait and be the biggest dumb a## in the neighborhood. 50-50 chance of either one happening.
Edited by pat-michigan 10/21/2007 19:26
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When do you say the heck with it and just mud it out?
