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Widespread prevent plant expected in Delta

An excessively wet planting season has worsened in the last month for farmers across the Delta.

“It’s changed from flood water to rain water.”

Several thousand acres of Jeff Rutledge’s farm in Jackson County, Arkansas flooded in early April. He says there’s been about 10 inches of rain in the last week.

“Most of the flood water has gone down and did get off some fields for a little bit, but you can’t really tell. We’ve had so much rain it still looks like the rivers are backed out and some of it still is, really.”

Rutledge says he won’t get rice re-planted before Sunday, the final planting date for crop insurance, and he’ll take prevent plant.

“More than likely the fields not planted in rice won’t have anything planted, which will help us, because we have so many repairs to do anyway to fields after the flood.”

He says the fields that can support a crop will probably get switched to soybeans.

Alan Meadows farms near the Mississippi River in Lauderdale County, Tennessee and he says it’s a similar situation with local farmers taking prevent plant for corn and cotton.

“We’ll have a little larger than expected soybean crop here, because of the swapping of acres from corn and cotton to soybeans.”

William Cole, a crop insurance agent with clients in Arkansas, Mississippi, Louisiana, Tennessee and Kentucky, says prevent plant will be widespread across the region.

“I’ve been doing this 30 years and we might have as much prevent plant as we’ve ever had this year.”

Cole tells Brownfield…

“Usually, southern Arkansas and Mississippi are real wet and then, we have normal planting in northern Arkansas across to Tennessee to the Missouri Bootheel. But this year, the entire region has fronts that are drenching Kentucky and down.”

He says farmers should work closely with their crop insurance agent if they’re taking prevent plant.

More rain is in the forecast for the Delta through the end of the month, but as the growing season continues, Meadows says “pray for a little sunshine and good weather here.”

Brian Splitt, a market analyst with Ag Market dot Net, says it’s unclear how reductions in the Delta will affect overall U.S. crop production, but it could have local basis implications.

Photo credit: Jeff Rutledge