Soil Moisture Concerns Farmers Preparing To Plant Crops

Indiana farmers are becoming concerned that recent precipitation – both rain and snow – will delay this year’s planting date.  As Indiana Public Broadcasting’s Samantha Horton reports, they’re waiting for the right soil dampness to begin putting crops in the ground.

Indiana Farm Bureau spokesman Bob White says there’s a simple test farmers are doing to determine whether the ground is ready for them to plant.

“If you can make a ball and it stays as a ball, doesn’t crumble on you, that’s too damp,” says White.

Planting crops on time is essential to maximize harvest yields.

White says there’s a risk if farmers try to drive over the soil when it’s too damp.

“You start a compaction problem where you compress the ground so much that it becomes hard and the emergence of the plants won’t occur with regularity,” White says.

He says farmers normally wait until soil is at least 50 degrees before planting.

Southern Indiana farmers would normally be preparing to plant about now, with the rest of the state hoping to follow in the next few weeks.

“If we talk in two weeks and we still got rain in the forecast, they can’t get in the fields, they haven’t been in the fields,” says White. “That frustration level will just gradually rise.”

White has a farm just north of Lafayette and reflects on a similar issue happened last year.

“Last year it took a while for everybody to get there crop in because of the rain and so it’s a struggle every year and each year Mother Nature throws something different at you,” says White.

White adds lingering wintry temperatures could also make it challenging for crops to begin growing once they’re in the ground.

Every week the U.S. Department of Agriculture National Agricultural Statistics Service for Indiana releases a weekly crop progress and condition report.