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Northeastern South Dakota getting just enough rain and cold to delay planting

The start of the Great Plains planting season is drier than normal, but it keeps getting pushed back because of cold temperatures and just enough brief periods of precipitation to delay fieldwork. One thing that is not in short supply is optimism, according to Heather Beaner, who farms at Mellette, in the northeastern corner of South Dakota. It is too cold to plant row crops, but some spring wheat is in, said Beaner.

There has been little if any planting of corn and soybeans in that part of South Dakota, she said.

“The ground is a little cold up here,” said Beaner. “I stuck a ground thermometer in the field near my house a couple days ago and it was still down in the low 40s and you know, we like to see that 50-degree mark in our soil temperature before we put those seeds in it.”

On the other hand, Beaner is encouraged by the completion of other seasonal chores.

“A lot of guys were putting down fertilizer; that really has been good this year,” Beaner, taking a brief break from counting scale tickets, told Brownfield Ag News Wednesday. “A lot got put down last fall, too, but the guys who want to do it this spring have definitely had the chance.”

A recent inch-and-a-half of rain saved their spring, said Beaner, but she is concerned about the timespan before the next precipitation comes along.

“We’re still dry,” she said. “We really depleted our subsoil moisture towards the end of last year, when the rains kind of turned off in August.”

Beaner pushes away that worry with the realization that there is still good demand for corn and soybeans.

“With the market prices and with the things just setting up the way they are,” said Beaner, who is part of the South Dakota Soybean Checkoff Board, “we’re looking forward hopefully to a really good year in South Dakota farming.”