The weather outlook for this week isn’t too favorable for farmers to continue trying to plant crops.

ISU Extension Field Agronomist Mike Witt says the wet spring weather has pushed back planting season and has caused farmers to fall slightly behind. Witt points out across Greene County about 80-90-percent of corn and only 30-40-percent of soybeans have been planted. Based on soybean trends, the percentage planted is about 10-15-percent behind. Witt adds the 8-14-day weather outlook from the National Weather Service is estimated to be colder and wetter than normal, and the same for the 90-day outlook. He offers this advice to farmers based on the current weather information:

“Getting your corn in the ground before Memorial Day will help a lot in keeping your yield potential higher in the 80-90 percentage. When it comes to soybeans we should be good still to get soybeans in the ground. Once we start going into June there still is a lot of potential for high yielding soybeans beginning of June, but your margin for error is a lot smaller. I would say farmers need to, when the ground is suitable to go, they go out and they get all their remaining crops planted in the fields.”

Witt doesn’t anticipate what happened last year with warmer temperatures happening as soon as it did to catch the crops up during the growing season. So Witt recommends watching when to spray fertilizer and fungicide on crops and knowing when to harvest so that corn and soybeans reach their full potential before the first hard frost freeze date in the fall.