• Home
  • News
    • Politics & Government
    • Business & Economy
    • Crime / Courts
    • Health / Medicine
  • Sports
    • High School Sports
    • Radio Iowa Poll
  • Affiliates
    • Affiliate Support Page
  • Contact Us
    • Reporters

Radio Iowa

Iowa's Radio News Network

You are here: Home / Agriculture / Warmer weather has farmers thinking about planting

Warmer weather has farmers thinking about planting

March 13, 2015 By Radio Iowa Contributor

Warmer weather has farmers thinking about scenes like this.

Warmer weather has farmers thinking about scenes like this.

Warmer temperatures have melted away much of the snow cover and that has farmers to starting think about getting into the fields. Iowa State University crops specialist, Joel DeJong says it the temperatures in the 60’s and 70’s have started to warm the soil and clear out the frost.

“I think if you get out there right now you are going to find its kind of — the term we’ll use is greasy — I think we still have some frost in certain areas of those fields and it’s going to be tough to say that it’s all out. We’re making progress, I think that’s what we’re doing right now.”

DeJong covers northwest Iowa and a survey shows soil moisture levels are, for the most part, adequate to begin spring field work. “Most of those sites actually were pretty close to numbers we see for the 15th of April time period. So the amount of moisture we have stored in the soil looks pretty good,” DeJong says. “typically winter time conditions don’t contribute a lot of moisture to the soil profile, so we’re not too shook about that.”

DeJong says the timing of spring rains will impact the start of planting, but he says if things stay warm, it may not be long before the planting season gets going. “You know we could be planting quite a bit of corn in five or six weeks,”DeJong says. He says there’s one thing that will help them know if the fields are ready for planting.

DeJong says they will be watching manure applicators to see if they can get into the field as the season to apply manure was short last fall and there is a lot left to be spread this spring. DeJong says if the ground can handle the equipment to spread manure, that’s an indication the ground can handle other equipment too.

(Reporting by, Dennis Morrice, KLEM, Le Mars)

 

Share this:

  • Facebook
  • Twitter

Filed Under: Agriculture, News Tagged With: Corn & Soybeans

Featured Stories

Iowa State Patrol tactical team leader killed in Grundy Center stand-off

Finalists chosen for the state’s top burger

Paintings by Clinton woman gain a following in Europe

Iowa deadline for individual income taxpayers moved to June 1

Dialing rules changing for two area codes in Iowa

TwitterFacebook
Tweets by RadioIowa

New title sponsor for Des Moines Marathon

Iowa State adds Minnesota transfer

Cedar Rapids preparing for big return of sports events

Iowa Games returning with full slate of sports

Iowa’s Garza sweeps national awards

More Sports

eNews and Updates

Enter your email address:

Delivered by FeedBurner

Archives

Copyright © 2021 ยท Learfield News & Ag, LLC