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Wet spring affecting Wisconsin specialty crop planting

Wet Wisconsin field conditions are affecting specialty crop planting, even in the lighter soils of the central sands region.  Dick Okray with Okray Family Farms tells Brownfield it’s challenging to get potatoes planted.  “We’ve got half of the potatoes in, maybe a little more than half.  We’re closing in on two-thirds.  Our guys are working very diligently between the rains to get out there and get the stuff in.”

Okray says they’ve been planting where it’s dry enough.  He says they stagger the potato planting dates for 17-hundred acres, and for them, having 2/3rds planted by the end of May is about right.  Okray is concerned about weather delays for their other specialty crops.  “The other six-thousand acres that we’re farming has to get all of that sweet corn, green beans, peas, and everything else drilled into the ground.  The canners that are asking us to do that are pretty set on the dates that they want to put their stuff in because they have an absolute harvest date.”

Okray says groundwater levels are up this spring, and they’ve found water as close as two feet to the surface.  He says when groundwater is that high, it becomes very perilous to operate machinery when planting potatoes 10 inches deep.