News

Central Wisconsin farmer patient before planting

A central Wisconsin farmer says he’s been patiently waiting for the weather to warm up before starting to plant.  Zeb Zuehls raises corn, soybeans, and hay near Montello. He says, “I no-till everything, so we have alfalfa seedings all in and everything, and I’m going to start planting here Monday, so, I’m in no big rush. I’ll let the ground warm up, and like I say, all I do is hook onto the planter and plant, so it’s not a big rush, but everybody really kicked it into high gear here yesterday around me.”

Zuehls tells Brownfield the soil temperatures have varied because of his mixed soil types. “It varies. You know, we go from muck soils to being right on the edge of the central sands. We’ve got sand, we’ve got muck, and we’ve got clay so there might be ten degrees difference in between them.”

Zuehls says patience paid off as the early week of warm weather followed by three weeks of below-average temperatures caused problems for some farmers. “I have heard of a couple of horror stories of guys that pushed the envelope there when we had that week of nice weather and now, they’re replanting after sitting in the ground for two weeks, or three weeks it’s been I guess, already.”

Zuehls says he’s learned to wait for field conditions to be right before planting.  He’s hoping the forecasted warm weather can help green up his hay fields, which have not grown much during the past few weeks.