Favorable conditions lead to unprecedented planting progress

A dry start to the planting season has given Angie Rieck-Hinz a sunny outlook on area crop production for this year.

According to the USDA report released last Monday, 54 percent of cornfields in North Central Iowa had been planted, with 9 percent soybeans in. Rieck-Hinz said that her personal observations later in the week show that number could be considerably higher, as farmers took advantage of dry, warm weather.

“I’d say corn is probably 75-80 percent planted and soybeans are at about 50 percent,” she said last Thursday. “People have made great progress and one of the biggest reasons is we’ve been fairly dry for once.”

Along with the weather, Rieck-Hinz said soil condition is largely favorable with good temperature and moistures levels. Soil temperatures are holding steady between 52 and 56 degrees.

“We like to see those temperatures in the 50s to be planting corn,” she said.

The positive start to the planting season is a stark contrast to at least the last two years, where cool, wet weather significantly delayed planting progress. Last year, many corn plants were not planted until June. At this time last year, just 16 percent of corn in the area was planted. The five year average for this time of year is 20 percent.

“We are ahead of our normal corn planting pace and that’s a good thing right now,” she said. “It’s a positive sight to see in all of ag.”

Rieck-Hinz said, however, that the favorable conditions and rapid planting progress does come with a sense of caution. She said conditions can turn in a hurry and disrupt growing progress.

“I think there are two things on farmers’ minds regarding planting and that’s that we could use a little rain and that some years we’ve had early planting in good conditions, we’ve had a drought,” she said. “People are a little concerned about that.”

She said with an abundance of the crops planted, rain would be a welcomed sight. In the month of April, the area recorded just 56 hundredths of an inch of rain in a month where 3.39 inches typically falls. She said the soil currently has enough moisture to support crops for the start, but the longer the dry period lasts, the more crop development could potentially be damaged.

“If we get into late June, early July where the plants are at the reproductive stage, that will be a concern if we remain dry,” she said.

But for now, Rieck-Hinz said farmers should celebrate the successful start to the growing year, as reasons for excitement amid the COVID-19 pandemic have been few and far between.

“People have been rocking and rolling and we are in really great shape progress-wise compared to other years,” she said. “This has been the bright spot in agriculture.”