Weather worries: Farmers wait to plant and replant

On Sunday afternoon, north of Des Moines, Iowa, farmers might have been scratching their heads over the weather forecast. On Saturday, at least one weather service called for only a 29% chance of rain on Sunday, and with the wind blowing all day Saturday, the weekend weather seemed ready to let farmers back in the field.

Instead, on Sunday, planters were tucked away in machine sheds and farm yards, and some rigs, like the one pictured here north of Ankeny, were stranded in the field, as more rain fell into the late afternoon.

Lingering rains had rigs like this one north of Des Moines, Iowa, going nowhere on Sunday.

In a poll on Agriculture Online, about one third of farmers say they have less than 25% of their corn planted. Today's Crop Progress report will pinpoint the delays further, but estimates last Monday showed corn planting at 24% completed, almost half the 42% five-year average.

It was a soaking weekend in general for the western Corn Belt -- eight and a half inches of rain in Aberdeen, South Dakota, six inches in Omaha. On Monday morning, widespread, locally heavy rain was still falling in eastern Kansas and western Missouri.

"We were close to being done [planting corn] in northeast South Dakota, but with 10 inches in a couple of days everything around here is flooded and looks terrible," one farmer told Agriculture Online. "At our farm I have never seen that much water floating around."

Even for those farmers with corn planted, the wet weather has brought a new concern: replanting. "Here in southeast Nebraska, we had gully washers last night with more to come today and tomorrow," a farmer reported in Agriculture Online Crop Talk. "Doesn't look good for the approximately 50% planted."

The National Weather Service six- to 10-day outlook for May 12-16 calls for above-normal temperatures and below-normal rainfall nearly nationwide, USDA reported Monday.

But, the window of opportunity for drying fields may be limited in some areas, says Freese-Notis Weather.

"Whatever corn acreage is shown as unplanted in this afternoon's Crop Progress report for Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri and Kansas, one really wonders when a lot of that acreage will have a chance to dry out enough for such planting to get done," said Craig Solberg in his Agriculture Online weather report Monday.