Things Are Beginning To Look Up For Minnesota Farmers!

If you’ve driven around even a slightly rural section of Minnesota recently, you’ve seen our states’ farmers hard at work.  As I wrote recently, farmers are the backbone of our country and they face tremendous stressors, a lot of which they can’t control. 

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One of the biggest aspects of farming that is not within the control of the farmer is the weather. Too much or too little of the needed elements in growing can be devastating to a growing season, and to the profitability of farmers. 

This week I came across an interview from Brownfield, which specializes in Ag information, where they chatted with Dave Nicolai who is with the University of Minnesota as an Extension Educator in Field Crops. He talked about there’s been some promise in the planting of the major crops in Minnesota.  

Nicolai said that some farmers around the state were able to get their crops in the ground earlier this year; some were planted by Mid-April. This was in part to it being warmer than normal. 

He also said that then in the later stages of May it was wetter and colder, which could have had a negative impact on crops, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.  

As far as corn goes, Nicolai says that it is more yellow which is likely due to the lack of sunshine and warmth in the soil that we had for about a week or so in late May. He told Brownfield that corn is likely in the two to three leaf stages. 

For Minnesota Soybean farmers, they are behind corn in their development, and rows can be hoed now. Nicolai feels that things are looking up thanks to the warmer weather.

Nicolai also emphasized that proper weed control is important and using the proper weed killer early in the growth of the weed is also crucial to having a healthy, successful growing season.