ST PAUL, Minnesota — Minnesota farmers are making progress on spring planting but flooding over the weekend in southern Minnesota is setting some farmers back.
The United States Department of Agriculture's weekly Crop Progress report shows all the crops in Minnesota are ahead of last year, although many are still below the five-year average.
Corn planting across the state is at 61% — eight days ahead of last year and one day ahead of the five-year average. Meanwhile, as of May 14, soybean planting is 30% complete, which is eight days ahead of last year but three days behind the five-year average.
Spring wheat is 28% planted compared to 5% at this same time last year. However, it's still behind the five-year average of 54%. Sugarbeets are 75% which is way above last year's 8% and also above the five-year average of 62%.
"Across the state, Minnesota farmers have made very good progress in terms of planting, particularly in central Minnesota and southern Minnesota. They're starting to go fairly well in northwestern Minnesota. We were delayed because of the late snowfalls and the heavy snowfalls," said Dave Nicolai, a University of Minnesota extension educator in crops. "But recently, we've been impacted by some high amounts of rain in some parts of the state, particularly in southcentral Minnesota, over the top of this already planted corn and soybeans."
From Friday, May 12 to Sunday, May 14, Comfrey received more than 4 inches of rain — leading to flooding over the weekend.
"It's going to devastate the farmers; it's going to devastate the whole community," said Bob Veerkamp.
Veerkamp just planted corn and soybeans a week ago.
"Now it's underwater. The whole crop," Veerkamp said. "Being we had all this rain on it, some might come up but probably a lot of it won't."
"The farmers will have to look at those fields and determine whether or not there will be enough crop left after the rain goes away that it looks like it's going to survive," Nicolai said. "But if it's only parts of a field, and parts of it have died, they'll probably have to plant whole sections."
Nicolai said farmers need more of Monday's weather, saying, "Sunshine, warm temperatures in the 70s... just what we needed."
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