Written by Jonathan Eisenthal 

Farmers across Minnesota report cool, wet weather has meant a delay to their plans to plant corn and soybeans this spring. 

“I started planting last year on April 22,” Rob Tate said. He farms near Cannon Falls. “I don’t know if we will even be starting in April. I kind of think it will be May before we get to it.” 

Bryan Biegler, president of the Minnesota Corn Growers Association (MCGA), farms in Lake Wilson in southwestern Minnesota, concurred. “It’s going to be a while before we get started. The ground froze up again (he reported on April 19). It’s about 24 degrees again this morning. The weather is not conducive yet. We definitely won’t be going this week, and next week, they are talking about the weather cooling again, so I don’t know if we are going to get into the field this month or not.” 

Biegler, who strip tills his corn, is still waiting for good conditions to run a freshener over his strips to level them and place a starter application of nitrogen in advance of planting.  

“I used the freshener last year and it worked really well, so it’s going to be part of my program now,” Biegler said. 

Another trend on the Biegler farm is that middle daughter, Aubrey, has begun (with dad in the passenger seat) to do regular stints operating the planter and combine. At 12, Aubrey has already declared her intention to follow in dad’s and mom’s footsteps and become a farmer.

‘A month before we can plant’

In northwestern Minnesota, they like to plant corn at the end of April or the beginning of May, according to Mahnomen farmer Dave Vipond.

“I think it will be a month before we can plant,” he said. “It’s later than we would like it to be. …We haven’t changed varieties yet, but if we know that we aren’t going to get into the field until the end of May then, yes, we are going to go and start looking for something (that matures) earlier.” 

Vipond averages corn with 85-day maturity, while Tate, in the opposite corner of the state, tends to plant 105-day maturities. Like Vipond, Tate says he has no plans to change to a shorter season variety. Yet. 

Harold Wolle, Jr., who farms near St. James with his son Matthew, thought they might even be able to get started before the end of April.  

As of April 24, Minnesota’s farmers had not planted a statistically significant number of corn acres this season, according to the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS). Last year, 16% of corn acres had been planted at this time.

For several reasons, foremost being the skyrocketing cost of fertilizer, farmers across the nation plan to plant 4% fewer corn acres and 4% more soybean acres, according to the NASS Prospective Plantings report issued March 31. NASS surveyed more than 73,000 farmers across the country to make these projections.

In Minnesota, the report projects an estimated 7% drop in corn planting, down 600,000 acres, for a total corn planting of 7.8 million acres. About 350,000 more acres will be planted to soybeans instead. In Minnesota, 120,000 acres will drop out of agricultural production altogether.

Seeking warmer temperatures

Wolle says they plan to reduce their corn acres. In recent years, they have planted 66% of their land to corn and 34% to soybeans, but this year, they will drop the corn acreage to about 60%.  

Fertilizer prices and reduced availability of fertilizer are part of the reason for the change.  

“Fertilizer, locally, is three times what we paid last year,” Wolle said. He noted, however, “The price of corn is substantially higher, so that certainly offsets some of the cost.” 

But agronomics also play into the Wolles’ plans, because weed control, as a rule, has been easier in corn than in soybeans. When they find that weed pressure has eased in some fields that have been in corn, they return them to soybeans, to get the benefit of rotation. 

Another change that the Wolles are planning, which seems to be trending, is to plant soybeans earlier than in past years. 

“We switched last year and did a couple of fields of soybeans first, and they turned out really well, so that is the plan again this year,” Wolle said. “They were harvested at a normal time. (The early planting) seems to give them a little advantage.”

Last summer’s drought remains a concern for Minnesota farmers, who have been evaluating the level of moisture in the soil profile. 

Tate has been driving around the Cannon Falls area, and around his land, to evaluate moisture. 

“There is not as much water coming out of tile lines now as I have seen in years past,” Tate said. “Places where there is usually water sitting — those aren’t there. I do have some water running from tile lines, so the soil profile is probably full, but it’s not excessively full, based on what I see coming out of the tile lines. If we don’t get timely rains throughout the season, there’s not a lot of excess water in the soil profile.” 

Vipond will be watching to see when the NDAWN (North Dakota Agricultural Weather Observation Network) system shows soil temperatures above 50 degrees. One of the NDAWN stations is seven miles from his farm.

“It’s wet and the soil is too cold to plant,” Vipond said. “Those two things seem to go together. What we need is three solid weeks of warmth and sun to get us dried out so we can get out in the fields.”