The Commercial-News, Danville, IL

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May 10, 2009

Rain keeps farmers from fields

BY ANNA HERKAMP

DANVILLE — This spring’s overabundance of rain has dampened local farmers’ fieldwork plans, but most experts say it’s still too early to worry about significant yield loss.

The spring has seen higher-than-average rainfall. According to a statement issued by state climatologist Jim Angel of the Illinois State Water Survey, April’s rainfall average was 6.2 inches, 2.4 inches above normal. The amount is tied with 1983 for the sixth wettest April since records began in 1895. Combined rainfall for February and March resulted in 12.9 inches of precipitation, nearly 4 inches above normal.

Although local producers are slightly behind where they would like to be at this point, farmers are eager to get busy this week.

Sunny days in the 60s to low 70s forecasted for the next few days will make for ideal planting weather.

Randy Hathaway, a Veedersburg, Ind.-area farmer, said he’d like to have his corn in the ground by May 10, but by the end of last week, he’d only finished about 600 acres, or 25 percent of his corn planting.

When the planting schedule doesn’t quite match up with standard rules of thumb for planting, Hathaway says you’ve got to “take the calendar and throw it way.”

Although May 10 is one of the key dates producers like to shoot for to be done with corn planting, it gets to be a moving target, depending on how the season progresses, he said.

Farmers who still had pre-planting work to do may be even further behind.

“I think there’s a lot of field prep work for people who till — probably fertilizing that didn’t get done last fall because of high prices,” he said.

“Everything is going to happen at once now. When it becomes dry enough, we’ll be burning the candle at both ends.”

Hathaway isn’t as worried about planting soybeans at this point, but in an ideal year, he’s like to see them planted by May 20.

If this season is an indication of the rest of the year, yields may be relatively unaffected by late planting.

“If it doesn’t frost until the end of October, it may be one of those years where things are a little later.”

But if it frosts early, it could have a devastating effect on harvest, he added.

Mike Toohill, an agronomist with Midwest Seed Genetics, said corn planting is about 40 to 50 percent behind in this area.

By this time, area farmers should have about 66 percent of the corn crop planted, but the number last week lingered at about 5 percent.

“Historically, yields will start to drop mid-May,” he said.

Vermilion County Farm Bureau spokesman Tom Fricke agrees that this week’s stretch of sunny warm days will be important.

For now, farmers aren’t too concerned about losing yield — so far there won’t be a lot of catastrophic loss, but if another month goes by and there isn’t significant progress, it could be damaging, he said.

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