Word: blight
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...should be the best crop I've had in many, many years," gloated Delmar Grotefendt, surveying the fields of ripe golden corn on his 350-acre farm in Marine, Ill. Only last year corn blight, which destroyed 15% of the nation's corn harvest, rotted black much of Grotefendt's planting. Farmers feared that the virulent fungus might ruin up to half the crop this summer. Yet last week, a mood of quiet satisfaction was evident across the U.S. heartland as farmers began bringing in one of the most bountiful harvests in history...
Almost every crop will be larger than last year. The Agriculture Department expects a record 1.6 billion bushel harvest of wheat, or 18% more than in 1970. An unmatched 1.2 billion bushels of soybeans is predicted. Since the threat of widespread blight never materialized, the corn yield is expected to weigh in at an unprecedented 5.3 billion bushels, up 28% from last year...
Perfect Weather. A big factor in checking the blight was the unusually dry weather in July and August that deprived the fungus of life-giving moisture. The cornbelt states of Illinois, Nebraska and Iowa, which were badly plagued in 1970, escaped with only light damage this summer. "The weather was perfect," says Wyne Englehardt, who grows corn and wheat on a 4,000-acre farm near Oakley, Kans. Many farmers in Southern states where leaf disease broke out in 1970 planted blight-resistant seeds this year. Thus the spores could not accumulate and be blown North to infect fields there...
...change in the Government's complicated price-support program also contributed to the overflowing corn crop. To offset the possible effects of blight this year, the program was realigned to induce farmers to use up to 20% more of their corn-growing land instead of leaving it fallow. The result: corn plantings increased by almost 7,000,000 acres, to 64 million acres...
...abroad, those most directly affected by Nixon's sweeping economic policy prepared for councils that will debate for months what he announced to the world in a few minutes. Out of their discussions may emerge more permanent prescriptions for the plight of the dollar abroad and the blight of inflation at home than anyone-even a Presiden-could impose by any kind of personal fiat...