(Lakefield, Mn.)– An extended period of dry weather that’s in the forecast couldn’t come any sooner for area farmers. Jim Nesseth of Extended Ag Services in Lakefield says even then, some damage has already been done when it comes to low lying areas that have water standing in them. He says it’s still possible to re-plant soybeans but producers will take a hit on yields at harvest time…
“We’re going to start seeing some pretty significant yield penalties, I think, on planting dates, so we’ll have to watch that. June 10th in Minnesota is the final planting date when we start losing some coverage, one percent per day, and June 15th in Iowa. That’s one thing we’ll just have to look at. It’s not what we want, Steve, but it’s not the first time this has happened to our producers and they’re handling it pretty well. You’ve just got to take what you get and try to make things as best as we can for hopefully some better days ahead in terms of growing degrees and less rainfall.”
Nesseth adds the wet conditions are also making it a challenge for weed control, especially in corn…
“That early planted corn is starting to get pretty big so that’s something we want to get after as soon as we can, but we have to have the weather cooperate there to get the fields dry and then you have to have that wind a little bit calm so we can actually get some spraying done. Soybeans, on that side of the rotation, we don’t know if we got all the pre’s down there. There are some good post-emergence products out there that will help. The nice thing about soybeans is that can take early season weed pressure a lot better than corn can, so, you know, those fields can get a little dirty and you can still get in there and control those weeds and still have pretty good yield potential.”
On the pest front, Nesseth says he’s getting reports of weevils in alfalfa fields. He says that’s likely a product of the unusually warm winter we had.
