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Downpours challenging some farmers this spring

An agronomy manager with Wyffels Hybrids says torrential downpours are wreaking havoc on some fields this spring.

Robby Meeker, who covers the eastern half of Illinois and all of Indiana, says some farmers have recently seen storms drop up to 8 inches of rain on newly emerged crops.

“A lot of guys that just side-dressed nitrogen and just finished post applications of herbicide, so it’s not ideal.”  He says, “Our soil just quite frankly can’t handle that much that fast. So much of it just runs off and causes washout issues, and everything we intended on being in our field is now in our drainage ditches.”

He tells Brownfield that most farmers aren’t likely to apply much in the way of rescue treatments, so yields are likely to suffer.

“It’s really challenging in this environment to pour on more nitrogen whenever we are dealing with commodity prices the way they are.”  He says, “That is a huge hurdle in the economic environment that we’re in 26.”

Meeker says the flooding could lead to some late replant in the affected areas, and he says scouting those fields for disease pressure will be key as the season progresses.

AUDIO: Robby Meeker – Wyffels Hybrids