News

Indiana’s soil moisture outlook

A resource specialist says this winter has helped replenish soil moisture heading into spring planting.

Cody Linville with Indiana’s State Department of Agriculture is based in northeast Indiana. 

“In the Jay and Randolph County area, we got 5 inches of rain before we got the freeze,” he says. “It did a really good job of getting those moistures up. I don’t think we’re back to normal or where we should be, but with the snow we have, when it melts, hopefully it melts slow enough to where it seeps into the ground instead of running off.”

Allen County Soil and Water Conservation District director Julie Davis Good says farmers who have invested in conservation practices are seeing it pay off.

“We’re talking no till cover crops, keeping live roots, keeping that soil covered all winter,” she says. “They had the highest yield, so the cover crops maintained the moisture. They didn’t steal the moisture, they maintained it, and the corn and beans benefited from it.”

Brownfield spoke to Linville and Good at the 2025 Fort Wayne Farm Show.