MINNESOTA-Planting season has been underway for several weeks here in southeastern Minnesota. Tom Hoverstad, a scientist for the Southern Research and Outreach Center over in Waseca, said this planting season hasn't been too bad, except for all the rain we've had over the past several days. Despite some of the colder temps we saw last month, he said that farmers who decided to plant corn, soybeans, and small grain in the middle of April are doing pretty well. Also, most farmers got their crops planted by May 5th, but all the recent heavy rainstorms have flooded some fields. That's forcing some farmers to evaluate whether or not they may need to replant.
“As a farmer looks at his field that maybe has ponded water flooded, couple things come to his mind. He’s gotta-how long has it been underwater? Crops can generally survive two to four days. At cooler temperatures, that’s probably more towards four days, so he’s gotta evaluate what’s gonna come out of there, and the only way to do that is when it dries up. They’ll look at it and decide whether that stand is-is worth keeping or is it going to be a replant situation. Time will tell on that," Hoverstad said.
He also said that farmers are going to want to have their corn planted no later than the first week of June and their soybeans planted no later than the end of June. He also said that good weather the next several days would be a big benefit to farmers who want to replant their crops.
