Grain traders like to say “Rain makes grain.” On a crop tour, it makes for grumpy crop scouts — especially when the scouts are farmers who have not seen decent moisture all summer, until now.

I spent Monday with three such farmers, scouting corn and soybean fields across northwest Ohio on one leg of the John Deere Pro Farmer Midwest Crop Tour.
We drove through showers much of the day, varying from light to heavy to near-biblical. We got plenty of firsthand exposure to the region’s rich, clay-colored soil each time we would venture out into a field, take our measurements and return back to our van, the soles of our boots caked with a thick layer of mud. Scraping our feet against the edge of the rural pavement had only a limited effect.

“This is the most rain we’ve gotten in two or three months,” said Don Harris, 70, a scout on the tour who farms corn and soybeans on about 470 acres near Muncie, Indiana. Showers hit his land on Monday as well.

Farmers are used to nature’s ironies, but getting soaked in the fields seemed like insult added to injury after dry weather stunted the region’s corn. Plants were shoulder-high in some areas where healthier corn is closer to 7 feet tall.
“I think it’s too late to help the corn, but it might help the beans,” Harris said.

“If this rain had come a month and a half ago, it’d be worth a lot of money,” he said, drying off in the van.