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Chaotic growing season in east-central Minnesota

A seed manager who covers east-central Minnesota says the 2016 growing season has been chaotic.

Rob Wentz of Peterson Farm Seed describes a scenario where hail damaged crops in the eastern part of his territory, while corn, soybeans and sugar beets to the west look fantastic.

“I was just in the Dassel area, which looks phenomenal.  It will rival yields of last year.  And then we go a little further south down near Stuart and Hutchinson, they’ve had so much rain (and some hail) that a lot of the corn had a really difficult time.”

He says even with adequate moisture throughout the region, a dryer pattern in August could cause problems.

“As far as the corn stands and that sort of thing, tasseling is pretty much done, but drought will be a concern now too because the ears will start tipping back if they don’t have adequate moisture at this point.”

Brownfield spoke to Wentz Tuesday at FarmFest near Redwood Falls in southwest Minnesota.