News

South Dakota fieldwork about to ‘let loose’

A few hours’ drive is all that separates the parched ground of western South Dakota from adequate rainfall along the state’s I-29 corridor. South Dakota farmer Keith Alverson has prepped fields to plant into cornstalks and says conditions are right for he and his neighbors to soon get corn in the ground.

“We picked up about an inch-and-a-half of rain here over the last couple of days,” Alverson told Brownfield Ag News Thursday. “I’d anticipate about another inch more, and I kind of think once the sun comes back out, we’re going to start to see [planting] let loose.”

Western South Dakota ranchers received limited fire danger relief after light precipitation but have otherwise been battling grass fires. That dryness is not the case where Alverson farms in the southeastern part of the state.

“We had fortunately gotten rain and snow late winter that our soil profile was probably about [60 to 70 percent] full,” said Alverson, “so we were sitting pretty nice to get into the field and get things done.”

Alverson is a former president of the South Dakota Corn Growers Association.