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Constant rain causes flooding across southern Minnesota

Several days of heavy rains have left parts of fields and communities under water in southern Minnesota.

Kent Thiesse, a farm management analyst and senior vice president of MinnStar Bank in Lake Crystal, says constant rain since last Wednesday amounted to five to eight inches with isolated reports in Brown and Watonwon counties of 10 to 11 inches of rain.

“There’s flooding in the city of Comfrey and the farm fields around there, but really across the entire region depending on how much rain they had as of yesterday and into this morning. A lot of standing water.”

Speaking to Brownfield Monday morning, he said the entire month of May has been wetter than normal and the ground has no more capacity to handle moisture.

“It’s really going to delay the initiation of planting again, and also probably result in a lot of replant in some fields that were planted.”

Thiesse estimates about 85 percent of the corn acres in south-central Minnesota are planted but says less than 25 percent of soybeans are in.