Low Soil Temperatures Concern Farmers

About two weeks ago when I was up at the State FFA Convention, a little bit of corn was planted. The soil temperature at that time was 60 degrees. Now it is 40 degrees. The soil temperature needs to be about 50 degrees for corn to germinate and begin to develop. Now with the sunshine and temperatures warming up, soil temperatures should increase fairly quickly. I suspect late this week and weekend you will see a lot of tractors in the fields.

One agronomist I talked with summed up this spring's weather pretty well. He said no farmers are sleeping well. Farmers with some corn in the ground are worried about how the corn will survive the cold, wet soils. Farmers with no corn planted are not sleeping well worrying about when they will be able to plant their corn. Even though the weather this spring has been cold, wet and miserable, it could be much worse. At least we have not gotten hit with severe storms, snow and multiple inches of rain.