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Crops are looking ‘pretty good’ with little rain thanks to no-till farming

Rain is fickle in parts of the Great Plains. The 2019 season of missed planting because of too much rain has been followed a year later by not enough rain.

“It’s dry,” said Jamie Johnson from Frankfort, South Dakota, during an interview with Brownfield Ag News. “We’ve had less than a half-inch of rain right here at our farm since the Fourth of July.”

Despite the dry spell, crops at the Johnson farm, situated in South Dakota’s northeastern corner, look good. That, says Jamie, is because she and her husband Brian farm without tillage.

“The crops just seem to hang on a little bit better than the conventional tilled, or anything that’s been worked a little bit,” she said. “And when you have that many years behind you, that really does help a lot with the crop residue and keeping the soil cool and helping so you’re not losing moisture to evaporation.”

Because of how dry it has been, it’s likely the couple will get a break on drying corn this year, and they just might begin combining soybeans in the next week.

“I feel like [harvest] will be early and short, which can be nice, because sometimes you get those early snowstorms,” said Johnson. “That’s what it looks like on our farm.”

AUDIO: Jamie Johnson

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