No. 332 May 1, 1953
INDIANA CROPS AND LIVESTOCK
U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
BUREAU OF AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS
COOPERATING WITH
PURDUE UNIVERSITY
AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION
DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURAL STATISTICS
WEST LAFAYETTE, INDIANA
INDIANA
Indiana wheat made good growth in April. Temperatures were much below average,
and moisture was slightly less than average but adequate. Winter loss of acreage was
nominal and was due to other causes than cold weather. The acreage for harvest is
1,540,000, and the indicated yield per acre is 24.0 bushels. Production forecast of 36,960,000
bushels is 29 percent above the ten year average, and equal to last year.
The acreage of rye for harvest is 50,000. The indicated yield of 14.0 bushels per acre
makes production 700,000 bushels. This is 80 percent of average, and 106 percent of last
year.
Stocks of hay on farms May 1 were 301,000 tons. This indicates a disappearance of
2,528,000 tons in the year or 198,000 less than in the preceding year. The mild winter
reduced hay needs but sales to drouth areas were greater than usual. The condition of
hay at 89 is 1 point below last year. Pasture condition at 88 is 2 points below last year.
Indiana produced 276 million eggs in April or 100 percent of last year. For the first
four months of the year production was 1,067 million eggs or 101 percent of last year.
April layers averaged 14,444,000 which is about the same as last year. Rate of lay was
1,914 eggs per hundred birds which is slightly above last year, and 101 percent of the
ten year average.
Milk production in April was 312 million pounds. This is 104 percent of last year. For
the first four months production was 1,117 million pounds or 105 percent of last year.
UNITED STATES
Progress of the 1953 crop season is about normal for the country as a whole, although
hopes for an early spring were dashed by unseasonably cold weather in April. The soil
moisture situation is now mostly satisfactory, except in the dry Southwest. April rains
were beneficial, even though they delayed field operations. Winter wheat in the southern
Great Plains was adversely affected by cold weather and freezes and continued drought,
but improved generally elsewhere. Production is now estimated at 730 million bushels,
16 million more than on April 1. Fall-sown oats and barley, which are grown largely in
the more humid areas, are generally prospering. Pastures have developed slowly in many
areas where they were overgrazed last fall, and are poor in dry areas, but elsewhere grass
and hay crops made good growth.
Unusually cold weather, with freezing extending well into the South during much of
April, retarded crop growth. Heavy rains delayed field work, except in a large interior
portion of the country and the Southwest to southern California. However, farmers were
able to accomplish most of their planned field work and intended plantings to date. Only
m some northeastern sections is the delay in seeding spring grains likely to result in
shifts to later crops, while in some other sections work is still advanced. Freezes which
occurred at the latest date of record in several southern sections necessitated replanting
M cotton and perhaps some other crops and may have damaged fruit, lespedeza and
tender vegetables.
Adverse April weather in the Great Plains slowed development of an already backward winter wheat crop. Freezes were followed by a few hot days which dried the tips
M leaves, and then by more low temperatures. Drought has continued in an important
area extending from the Texas and Oklahoma Panhandles and New Mexico into southeastern Colorado and southwestern Kansas. Growers have turned cattle into many fields
to salvage the wheat as grazing, which supplemented the short range and pasture feed.
Much of the crop in western Kansas and parts of Nebraska is still in precarious condition, and depends on continued timely rains. In much of this dry Great Plains area the
earlier wheat has exhausted the short supply of soil moisture and is dying, but much
TV tmerged durm& the winter, and which was not expected to survive, still has moisture.
"Is has tended to hold abandonment somewhat below that expected earlier, though it is