5.5 Inches Of Rain Overnight
“5.5 Inches Of Rain Overnight”
Asked what a farmer does when 5.5 inches of rain falls on his place overnight, Trent Brandenburg replied,”Stay in the house!” During the overnight between Thursday and Friday, May 18 and 19, a 5.5-inch rainfall was reported at Cerro Gordo. Trent knew of measurements up to 7 inches. Trent surveyed his acreage Friday and found only about 5 per cent to be badly ponded. The wet soil will delay the needed replanting.
Trent had already begun replanting some corn acreage ponded in previous rainfalls, and was not yet done with soybean planting, so this work gets added to the replanting needed from the most recent “rain event” The replanted corn also creates a harvest problem because it will mature later than the surrounding corn from the original planting. So the replanted corn’s moisture content will be too high for safe storage at the time the drier surrounding corn can be picked. This will require more passes through the field to harvest the entire crop. “We’ll get through it,” Trent observed.
More from The Field Report
Wind And Sun Dried The Fields Fast
This morning (June 6, 2022) Trent Brandenburg was considering if he should start mowing roadsides. Watching the cloudy skies, he wondered if he would be caught in the rain. Trent finished his planting over a week ago. He has a [...]
Spring Planting is Really Really Slow
Trent Brandenburg has been hunting dry fields to plant. At the end of April 2022, he has planted about 20% of his corn and 20% of his beans. Trent doesn’t believe the early planting will make much difference because the [...]
Growers are Ready for Fieldwork – Soil is Not
It's Pretty Spongy Trent Brandenburg wants to begin his spring fieldwork, but reports the soil is "pretty spongy". He is hauling grain and is hampered by the wet soil in getting his trucks into his bins to load. This past [...]