News

Agronomist says rain would help prepare Wisconsin fields for ’25

An agronomist says most of Wisconsin needs rain to prepare the soil for next season. 

Scott Rowntree with Pioneer tells Brownfield that fall rain helps during the winter. “You need good soil moisture to get the compaction-alleviating affect of frost in the wintertime, and also in the February-March time frame to help relieve compaction. Whenever we have good soil moisture, we can do a much better job than bone dry soils like we’re seeing right now.”

Rowntree says the one benefit of a dry harvest season is less soil compaction from harvest traffic. “For a lot of our heavy field operations, grain carts, silage choppers and trucks, so on and so forth, that’s a lot of weight out there but when we don’t have the soil moisture, the effects of compaction aren’t as much.”

Rowntree says the real concern with the recent dry spell is smaller seed sizes and smaller yields.

Add Comment

Your email address will not be published.


 

Stay Up to Date

Subscribe for our newsletter today and receive relevant news straight to your inbox!