Wet weather putting Southwestern Indiana farmers behind in planting

EVANSVILLE, Ind. — A wetter than normal spring has area farmers racing the clock to get corn and soybean crops in the ground to make the most of their growing time.

For some local farmers, this week was the first time they were able to get into their fields and plant.

“It’s been rather stressful,” said Eric Crews, who manages operations for Stahl Farms in Vanderburgh County. “It’s been an unusually wet April.”

Crews said Wednesday was the first day this year he had been able to plant.

“Last year was about the same. It seems like each year the window of opportunity is getting narrower and narrower,” he said.

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Crews said he has learned to keep the equipment ready to go at a moment’s notice to take advantage of those opportunities to plant when they do happen.

Although last year’s yield was down a little, Crews said he is still hopeful this year’s harvest will be good.

“In ideal conditions, we can have our entire crop planted in 10 days,” he said.

But the rainy conditions can stretch two weeks of planting into two months, Crews said.

Statewide, Indiana farmers had planted only about 2 percent of the corn crop and less than 1 percent of soybeans for the week ending April 28, according to a weekly crop progress report issued by the United States Department of Agriculture.

April saw 5.46 inches of rainfall on the Evansville area, according to the National Weather Service. That was 1.7 inches more than April 2018 and more than an inch above normal.

Forecasters at the weather service's regional office in Paducah, Kentucky, are predicting a 40 percent or more chance of a wetter than normal May. 

"We love to get it planted in April if we can. The first two weeks of May is the optimal time, then yields start to reduce. The average bushels per acre starts to creep down the later in May it gets," said Todd Meyer, sales manager and agronomist at Superior Ag farm cooperative.

However, Meyer was hopeful that if the weather cooperates area farmers will catch up rapidly.

"We can plant over half the crop in a week," he said.

It's not so much the overall amount of precipitation that has been the problem but the frequency of those rains, said Peter Rudolph, who farms near Boonville, Indiana, in Warrick County.

"When we can get those rains spread out it's not so bad," he said. "But our weather keeps changing. We keep getting more frequent and heavier rainfalls. It's more unpredictable and keeps increasing our risk on getting our return (in investment)."

Rain totals of 5-6 inches or higher were common across the Tri-State in April, with temperatures reaching 80 degrees four times in Evansville and seven times in Paducah, according to the National Weather Service.

Heavier rains, earlier springs and hotter summers are something Indiana farmers can expect more of due to the effects of climate change, according to a report by Purdue University's Climate Change Resource Center. Changes to Indiana’s climate over the coming decades will include increasing temperatures, changes in precipitation amounts and patterns and rising levels of carbon dioxide in the air, impacting the state’s agricultural industry.

Some farmers are already experiencing the effects of wetter than normal conditions from recent years.

“The majority of us have been looking at each expenditure we make and scaling things back,” Rudolph said.

Hans Schmitz, an educator at Posey County’s Purdue Extension Office, keeps a weekly crop and weather report.

He recorded farmers had three days of fieldwork for all of April in Posey County.

“We’re seeing heavier rainfalls and more frequent,” he said. “The last couple of springs we have had heavy rain events.”

This spring has seen more frequent, smaller precipitation events for much of Southwestern Indiana, giving fields little opportunity to dry out enough for heavy farm equipment, Schimtz said.

It’s not just planting that is affected, he said.

“We want as many acres in the region to be planted as possible so you have something green on them holding down the soil,” Schmitz said. “The more bare fields, the more potential for topsoil loss and dirty water.”