News

Renville farmer pumps brakes on corn planting

A west-central Minnesota farmer decided to pump the brakes on corn planting ahead of more cold and wet weather.

Gary Wertish farms in Renville County and says he and other area farmers have some corn in the ground.

But Wertish elected to stop planting after one field even though conditions were fit to continue.

“We figured we’d put one (field) in and then wait and let this weather system pass before we do any more.”

He tells Brownfield there could be problems if the rainy weather pattern lingers.

“Last summer and fall we had a lot of moisture.  So the top inch or so is drying out and very nice, but there’s still a lot of subsoil moisture in the fields (and) our tiles are running heavy.  So if this system hangs on too long, we could have issues.”

Wertish is optimistic corn yields will not be negatively impacted if he’s able to plant by May 10^th.

He says fields need to dry up and warm up, as most soil temperatures remain below 50 degrees.