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Wet Weather Puts Planting Season Behind Schedule

Sylvia Bao
/
http://indianapublicmedia.org/news/

Weeks of consistently wet weather are causing problems for Indiana farmers, who are now about three weeks behind schedule planting corn.

And that delay could have a financial impact on the rest of their year.

Vanderburgh County farmer Randy Kron has been itching to get out in his fields for a couple of weeks. But frequent rain means the ground’s been too wet to plant.

“Today is the first day that we’re doing any planting, so that’s kind of like a little bit of therapy to be in the tractor seat and be doing something finally,” Kron says.

Kron is spending the day tilling fields and planting corn, hoping to make up for some lost time. He says the later it gets into the planting season, the more volatile the weather can be.

That means yields could be impacted.

“Really, it depends what kind of summertime heat we have and the later heat,” Kron says. “And, also, it won’t dry down as fast in the fall which means we’ll be reusing our grain dryer and burning more gas. So it does have a financial impact.”

Kron says he hopes the weather will cooperate and allow farmers to get their beans in the ground on time in May.

Last year, farmers had such a successful season there was a crop surplus, which drove prices down. That surplus, however, resulted in low profits for farmers.