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Area farmers are off to a good start, spring planting completed
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By Charlie Warner
Argus News Editor
“We’re pretty much on schedule. We’ve received some perfect rains, have plenty of sub-soil moisture and things are looking very good.”
That’s the way Houston-Fillmore Extension Educator Jerry Tesmer summed up the 2009 crop situation for Houston County. He estimated that nearly 100 percent of both the corn and soybean crops are in the ground, with most plantings fully emerged.
Tesmer said it was a good spring for the farmers getting their crops in the ground. The dry spell in April had some worried of a drought. But the dry weather really helped farmers get their crops planted in a timely fashion. And the abundant rains in May brought the topsoil moisture contents back up to where they needed to be.
“We never had any big gully-washers in May, right after the fields were planted,” Tesmer noted. “We had abundant rain, but it was never real heavy.”
And the week of dry weather at the end of May and first week of June has been perfect for livestock farmers harvesting their first hay crop.
“Statistically speaking, the first two weeks of June are usually the wettest of the whole summer. I’ve seen many years when farmers have cut their first crop of hay and watched it sit for a week or two before the weather straightens out. That didn’t happen this year. We had our good shot of rain right after Memorial Day and then a good week of warm, dry weather. The timing was just about perfect for putting the first crop up,” Tesmer continued.
Temser anticipated the vast majority of the first hay crop would be harvested by June 10. Livestock farmers were out in force last week putting up their alfalfa, trying to beat the rainy weekend that had been forecasted.
“The first crop of hay gets harvested pretty fast in Houston County,” Tesmer pointed out. “Most of the dairy farmers chop the first crop, which takes less time than baling it. And almost all farmers are using large balers now, which goes a lot faster than the old, small square balers.”
According to the U of M Extension reporting station in Waseca, southern Minnesota’s subsoil is at about 85 percent capacity. The farther north and west of Houston County, the drier things are. But in this corner of the state, both the subsoil and topsoil moisture contents are adequate to good.
“The weather has also been very good for spraying. Usually late May and early June is a very windy period, making it difficult for farmers to keep the chemicals where they want them. But this year even that aspect has been good.
“Hopefully, this trend will continue. We’re off to a good start,” Tesmer concluded.
You can contact Charlie Warner at
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