BARN TALK
The Unfiltered Voice of Rural America
Issue #027 · September 30, 2026
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Hey folks, it rained about seven inches in ten days down here in southeast Iowa, and the combine has spent more time parked than running. Plenty of you are in the same spot. Down in Oklahoma, a town of 400 found out it has no say over a data center going up half a mile from its city limits.
In this issue
| The wettest September on record across parts of Iowa, Indiana and Ohio, with stalks going soft |
| 850 acres and a data center that a town of 400 cannot stop |
| Beans gained 15 1/2 cents while crude gave back $3.67 on truce talk |
| The Fed raised rates for the first time since 2023, and your operating note feels it first |
| 380 yards of concrete and what a trajectory day looks like |
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This Week's Episode
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Record September Rain Parked The Combines
Eastern Iowa, northeast Indiana and central Ohio are on pace for their wettest Septembers on record.
Heavy rain flooded fields across Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota and Ohio in the third week of September. A pocket from southeast Minnesota into northeast Iowa caught more than seven inches, and northern Illinois into northwest Ohio saw as much as 7.5 inches. Iowa got 1.7 days fit for fieldwork the week ending September 20. A year earlier it got 4.9.
The national number hides it
USDA had corn 13 percent harvested nationally as of September 20, ahead of the five-year average. That is the whole country averaged together. Iowa had 4 percent of its corn out, 3 points behind last year, and beans dropping leaves ran 12 points behind. Matt Griffin of BAM Weather calls it a bit of an Ag Belt divided, with the western side staying wet into October.
The stalks are the clock now
Iowa State agronomist Angie Rieck-Hinz is finding crown rot and stalk rot in corn. Extension agronomists in northern Illinois reported lodged corn and an above-average amount of ear rot on September 25. Every wet week that crop stands, the odds of stalks going down and ears dropping go up.
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From the Barn
The crop was made weeks ago. What happens now decides what it pays. With stalk rot out there, you go the first day the ground will hold a combine and you pay the dryer bill without whining about it. A drying charge stings. Corn lying flat in the field costs you the whole bushel.
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A Town Of 400 Can't Stop A Data Center Half A Mile Away
Aligned Data Centers paid $17 million in July for about 850 acres half a mile outside Amber, Oklahoma, a town of just over 400 people southwest of Oklahoma City. Town officials found out when the sale went public.
Grady County commissioners told a courtroom full of residents they have no jurisdiction. The county has no planning commission for unincorporated ground. Amber called off its try at annexing the land on September 22, and six data center bills already died at the Legislature.
By the numbers
| Up to 10 buildings planned, with groundbreaking possible as soon as December. |
| About 240,000 gallons of water per building for a closed-loop cooling system, with power generated on site. |
| About 60 permanent jobs in the first phase. |
Property rights cut both ways
State Rep. Dick Lowe, R-Amber, gave the Oklahoma position, which is that the state has personal property rights and is very, very high on them. Landowner Mark Straka put the other side of it, that by the time they mobilized it was already too late. Mayor Greg Mosier is down to asking for ordinances.
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From the Barn
Nobody here is going to tell a man he can't sell his own ground. But the neighbors live with the water draw, the trucks and the roads, and they never got a vote. A big crew shows up to build these, then about 60 people work there. If your county has no zoning on the books, you are one land sale from finding out the way Amber did.
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This week's numbers
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Corn (Dec '26)
$5.28 1/4 /bu
▲ 3/4 cent on the week
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Soybeans (Nov '26)
$13.19 /bu
▲ $0.15 1/2 on the week
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Chicago Wheat (Dec '26)
$7.03 1/4 /bu
▼ $0.11 on the week
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Live Cattle (Oct '26)
$218.87 /cwt
▲ $2.95 on the week
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Lean Hogs (Oct '26)
$78.22 /cwt
▲ $0.12 on the week
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Crude Oil (Nov '26)
$92.41 /bbl
▼ $3.67 on the week
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Tork's Picks
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Bitcoin
$84,413 USD
▲ $6,433 on the week
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Caterpillar (CAT)
$821.58 /share
▲ $12.59 on the week
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This isn't financial advice. I'm just a farmer with an opinion.
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Tork's Take
Beans gained ground in a week when a lot of us could not get a combine into the field, and that kind of bounce tends to last until the weather turns. If you still have unpriced beans in the bin, this is the kind of rally you use. Crude backed off on truce talk, and I will believe it when the diesel bill follows. I put Caterpillar up there because every data center going up needs a yard full of iron and a pile of generators, and somebody gets paid for all of it.
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Three hundred eighty yards of concrete. That is what went into the floor of my shed in one day, the fall I built it. Dad told me that was one of those days, and we went to Texas Roadhouse to celebrate.
He calls them trajectory days. Most days are grind days, where you do the work and nothing looks any different at supper. A few times in your life, a decision or a pile of that work lands all at once and the direction of everything changes. You only get the second kind by stacking up a lot of the first.
“When you put 380 yards of concrete in a hole, you're not going backwards.” |
Mine are easy to name. Building my first hog barn. Posting thirty YouTube videos nobody watched before one finally took. Hearing the Shopify notifications start after we launched the meat brand. I can count them on one hand, and every one came after months of days that felt like nothing.
The part I'm bad at is enjoying them, because I'm onto the next thing almost immediately. Dad also points out you don't always know one while you're in it. The first Barn Talk episode, shot in February 2021, was never supposed to go out. If you're grinding and can't see it paying off yet, keep going, and when the day comes, go get supper.
What was your trajectory day? Hit reply and tell me about it. I read every one.
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Four things that caught our eye
| 01 |
The Fed raised rates for the first time since 2023The Federal Reserve voted 12 to 0 on September 16 to lift its benchmark rate a quarter point, to 3.75 to 4 percent, citing inflation. Land and equipment notes mostly sit on fixed rates, but the operating loan renews every year at whatever money costs. Another hike before year end is on the table. |
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| 02 |
Rural nursing homes are closing faster than anywhere elseKFF Health News reported September 23 that the count of rural nursing homes fell about 10 percent from 2015 to 2025, against about 6 percent nationally. Staffing is the wall: small labor pools and long drives for low-paid, part-time shifts. When the home in your county closes, Mom's care moves to the next county or farther. |
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| 03 |
USDA counted fewer hogs than a year agoThe quarterly Hogs and Pigs report on September 24 put 74.3 million hogs and pigs on U.S. farms September 1, down 2 percent from last year. The breeding herd is 5.87 million head, down 1 percent. A smaller sow herd is the slow road to tighter supply, and it is the only road that ever fixes hog prices. |
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| 04 |
Copper thieves are working farm pumps againCopper hit record highs this month and the thieves noticed. Yolo County, California, has felony warrants out for two Stockton suspects accused of stripping copper wire off irrigation pumps, reported September 23. Repairs run growers $8,000 to $100,000 a hit. Lock the breakers at your remote bin sites. |
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Barn Talk Poll
Where do you land?
What gets you through a long day of work?
| A. Coffee |
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B. Energy drink |
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| C. Water |
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D. Pop or Soda |
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Did You Know?
Trucks haul more than 72 percent of all domestic freight tonnage in the U.S., about 11.27 billion tons in 2024. And 91.5 percent of trucking companies run 10 trucks or fewer. Most of what moves this country moves with a small outfit behind the wheel.
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Word of the Week
| NO-TILL |
Planting straight into last year's stubble without working the ground first. The planter or drill cuts a slot, drops the seed and closes it back up. You save fuel, passes and topsoil, and you trade them for colder, wetter ground in the spring and a sprayer doing the job the disc used to. |
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The weather decides when the combine rolls, and in Grady County a land sale decided what goes up next to the farm. You can't do much about the first one. Find out this week whether your county has anything on the books about the second.
We'll see you in the barn.
Sawyer & Tork
Hosts, Barn Talk · joinbarntalk.com
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Read online · © 2026 Barn Talk · joinbarntalk.com · This week's episode: #EP219
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