Wisconsin farmers rush to complete spring planting
Wisconsin farmers are rushing to finish spring planting this week, well ahead of a year ago when they faced the wettest spring in 125 years of record keeping.
As of Sunday, spring tillage was 96% complete, 26 days ahead of last year and two weeks ahead of the five-year average, according to the National Agricultural Statistics Service office in Madison.
Corn planting was 90% complete, nearly a month ahead of last year and well ahead of the five-year average. Soybean planting was 79% complete, 24 days ahead of the prior year and 13 days ahead of the average.
“Field work in eastern Wisconsin did not progress as quickly as the rest of the state, however, as fields were still drying out after recent heavy rains,” the NASS report said.
“I got mud all over the tires. The ground is saturated,” Ross Bishop, a beef and crops farmer in Washington County, said in a Journal Sentinel interview.
“I have some lower ground that I will have to replant because it flooded in four days of rain. But compared to last year, this is absolutely wonderful. Then it was just rain, rain, rain. It seemed like we had only two or three days to work the ground and then it rained for a week.”
Farmers who finished planting have geared up for the first cutting of hay. Statewide, 56% of the hay was reported to be in good-to-excellent condition.
For the summer, DTN, an agriculture information service based in Omaha, Nebraska, is forecasting temperatures to be near normal or a bit cooler in the far north of the U.S. But while growing conditions appear favorable, markets for corn, soybeans and other commodities are hurting.
“U.S. soybean supplies are backed up without access to (China) the world’s largest buyer of soybeans,” Todd Hultman, a DTN grain markets analyst wrote in a report this week.
“Reluctant to plant soybeans, the early intention of U.S. farmers was to plant more corn — until coronavirus interrupted those plans. As people stayed home, ethanol production (for gasoline) dropped swelled to record said.
“Coronavirus concerns shut down slaughter plants, causing livestock and poultry supplies to quickly reach unmanageable levels. Milk was poured on the ground as distribution channels shut down. Everywhere we turned, the tremendous productive capacity of U.S. agriculture was being wasted, clogged in constipated channels of demand,” Hultman wrote.
“To date, coronavirus concerns are slowly easing, but the threat of infection remains serious. Now, 97 million acres of (U.S.) corn planting intentions are apt to become 94 million actual acres,” Hultman wrote.
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