(Lakefield, Mn.)– 2020 will go in the books as a polar opposite when it comes to moisture. After too much moisture in recent years, this year we couldn’t get enough. Andy Nesseth of Extended Ag Services in Lakefield says it presented some challenges for area farmers this past fall…
“You know 2018-2019 was pretty historic in terms of moisture in most of our region. That had a couple of implications. One, you know, obviously it was hard on the crops and two it really complicated tillage. And I think we saw some of that this year, particularly in some corn on corn rotations where there was more soil compaction out there than what a lot of guys realized that impeded some yields. So the cold weather is certainly going to help with that and we definitely want that freeze-thaw. Hopefully the guys got some good tillage done this fall while it was dry. And with the dry soils it means hey, we’re going to need some timey rain next year. So these kinds of snowfalls, while obviously it’s not going to soak in as much, if any at all right now, hopefully we can get a nice slow thaw and get some recharge here. We’re going to need some timely rain in 2021 with where the soil profile is.”
Much of the region as of this past week remained in extreme drought.
