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This summer continues to be an outstanding growing season for Larry Dreier, who farms in Norwood, about 40 miles west of Minneapolis. Morning Edition producer Jim Bickal has been checking in periodically this summer, and this week found Dreier dealing with a setback in his plan to start a new batch of silage.

Farmer takes advantage of early planting

Silage is made on the farm and is fed to the dairy cows. Dreier explained that he started harvesting the corn for silage because he believed it had dried out enough. As it turned out, he was jumping the gun. 


"So, sad to say, we ended up quitting and covering up what we had chopped, and we're going to wait a week and let Mother Nature take its course and dry out a little bit," he said. 


It's all part of an extremely unusual growing season, the best he's seen in the nearly 40 years he's been farming. Record early planting and timely rains have produced corn plants several feet taller than usual. And the soybeans are thriving as well.


The amount of milk that his cows produce drops significantly when it's very hot, but this summer has been relatively cool, so milk production has remained high. Unfortunately, the price Dreier gets for his milk is much lower than it was a year ago. His dairy operation will be lucky to break even this year. 


Low milk prices, high meat prices and good weather will all play a part in determining how profitable Larry Dreier's farm is this year. He'll crunch the numbers once the harvest is over.

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Larry Dreier has never seen a growing season this good. But his dairy operation will be lucky to break even.

On the farm, a great growing season can't do it all

Dairy cows on Larry Dreier's farm in Norwood.

On the farm, a great growing season can't do it all

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