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South central IL farmers worried about soil moisture

Farmers in south central Illinois are worried about the lack of soil moisture heading into planting.

David Kleinschmidt, owner of Progressive Agronomy Consulting, says the region is dry…

“Comparing today’s date to a year ago and seeing where we fall with moisture, where we’re sitting right here in Montgomery County, we’re anywhere from 12 to 14 inches behind and some areas are a little bit higher than that,” he says.

Farmer Mark Schweizer tells Brownfield…

“Our sub soils are dry.”  He says, “Our tiles ain’t been running hardly at all, and we had a pretty good rain here a month ago I guess it’s been already.  That filled up some of the ponds and things like that and got the creeks running a little bit again. But they’re all slowed down again.”

Schweizer saw good yields last year thanks to timely rains spaced throughout the season.  He thinks they’ll be needed again in 2024.