Only one day last week was suitable for Iowa farmers to work in their fields and this week may end up being a complete bust due to continued rain.
Angie Rieck Hinz, an Iowa State University Extension agronomist in north-central Iowa, says some farmers are having such trouble with mud and moisture that it’s shaping up to be the worst planting season since the mid-1990s. “Planting progress is very similar to where we’re getting showers,” Rieck Hinz says. “There’s people that have been able to get into the fields, there’s people that haven’t been able to get in the fields. There are people that are done planting. There are people that haven’t planted anything.”
The U.S.D.A. report released Tuesday found corn progress statewide is ten days behind last year and soybeans are two weeks behind. “The corn that’s up looks great,” Rieck Hinz says. “It took about three weeks on average to get some of this corn out of the ground and it’s taken about two weeks to get some of the beans out of the ground.”
The latest report shows 76-percent of Iowa’s corn has been planted with less than one-third of the soybeans, and it appears some farmers will still be planting well into June. “We’re not going to make any progress this week more than likely,” she says. “I’m disappointed to hear we’re going to have showers over the weekend. It’s going to be a good solid week before we can get back in the field in some places and longer than that in other places that have had more rain.”
Forecasters indicate the current weather pattern may last a few more weeks and it could be mid-June before there’s a shift to bring us warmer, drier weather.
(By Pat Powers, KQWC, Webster City)