By Blake Haas

NORMAL – While wet conditions mixed with a cold snap provided tough planting for farmers, recent hot and dry days make the market jittery.

With Bates Commodities in Normal, Curt Kimmel told WJBC’s Marc Strauss the weather in the next couple of weeks is vital as corn begins pollination.

“When the weather is not good, we have to put on a weather premium. It tends to move prices higher… This time of year with the conflicting weather reports and the extreme being dry or the extreme being too wet makes the market a little jittery as the trade tries to get a handle on the size of the crop.”

Kimmel said recent heavy rains have not allowed cash crops to soak up the water, flooding many fields.

“These big cracks we see in the ground, you would think a lot of it would go down in the cracks. We would like to have a nice slow soaker, so it does soak in fairly well because it’s fairly dry down a ways.. This is the time window this week and next week mainly because we are going through corn pollination.”

Kimmel added that if central Illinois does not get cool and wet weather, farmers will begin to notice skipped rows and smaller yields.

Blake Haas can be reached at [email protected].