(Spencer)—What a difference a year can make in the weather around here.
A year ago, many farmers had already wrapped up planting and the corn was even starting to emerge in some areas. A year later, many farmers have yet to turn a wheel due to the abnormally cold, wet spring. While the cold and wet have delayed planting, Paul Kassel, a crops specialist with the Iowa State University Extension Service, tells KUOO news the rain and wet snowfalls have gone a long way toward replenishing subsoil moisture…( click here for comment .) “Since April 9th a lot of areas have had three and-a-half to four and-a-half inches of rain and some local reports of more than that. But just a huge improvement in the soil moisture because we had obviously a dry summer, dry fall, dry winter. It rained in early march there but it all ran off so this is just what we needed here, this three and-a-half, four and-a-half inches of rain, and it sounds like more on the way, so as people have said it’s all soaking in.”
And even though things are running behind schedule for fieldwork, Kassel says it isn’t time to panic yet…(click here for comment.) “You know about two years ago we had this same sort of thing where we really didn’t get in the field, I don’t think it was this cold two years ago, but really there was no fieldwork done until the last few days in April. We had a teleconference with some of my co-workers this morning, but I think the planting progress went from zero to 61 percent in the state of Iowa in that first week of May which is unheard of, a very fast rate of planting so, anyway, people have that in the back of their mind. So with any kind of condition we can get planting very timely. So really there’s no real huge concern at this time as far as planting date.”
Ideally, Kassel says there’s still plenty of time to plant corn and get maximized yields…(click here for comment.) “Basically, if we’re planted by May 10th that’s still a decent planting date. There’s exceptions to that, we’ve had years like where Iowa State and other seed companies have had data on planting studies and shown that even into mid-May, even May 20th really no affect on final yield. Maybe it affects the grain moisture at harvest but no affect on final yield. And there have been exceptions the other way, sometimes where it does make a difference. But again on average, if we’re planted corn by May 10th we’re still in pretty good shape in terms of producing a pretty decent crop.”
Forecasters are calling for drier and warmer conditions toward the end of the week and the upcoming weekend.
