Here's the latest weekly crop and weather report from the Southern Research & Outreach Center at Waseca, for the week of April 16-22.
Gyles W. Randall, soil scientist, and Thomas R. Hoverstad, scientist, at the SROC compile this information each week throughout the growing season.
Warmer and drier-than-normal weather this past week has been welcomed by southern Minnesota farmers. Air temps averaged 50.5 degrees or 3 degrees above normal. However, night-time minimum temps were in the 30s on four days. Soil temps at 2 inches averaged 52 degrees compared to the 25-year average of 47. The range was from 42 to 60 with warm temps mid-week and coolest temps on the cloudy days near week's end.
Rainfall totaling 0.37 inch (one-third inch below normal) occurred over a three-day period. Saturday night's rain resulted in a blanket of fresh green grass — another welcoming sign that spring is here. Soil water in the top 5 feet is at 80 percent of field-moist capacity. This is good for field activities, but additional rainfall will be needed in the next six weeks to fill the soil profile to normally expected spring levels.
Substantial progress has been made on corn planting. After a short delay, because of the weekend rain, soils are already fit to work and conditions are again ideal for planting.
Examination of corn seed that has been in the ground for one-week shows little progress toward germination and emergence. We usually look for corn emergence when 120 growing degree units are accumulated and this week we totaled 45. This would indicate that corn will need about three weeks to emerge under conditions like we experienced this week. Fortunately, modern corn hybrids are quite tolerant to these conditions and can emerge with good vigor after three weeks in the ground.
Survival of winter wheat was poor this winter and some of our winter wheat was reseeded to spring wheat. The abrupt end of fall and quick start to winter last fall may have been hard on winter wheat seedlings. Those without snow cover desiccated over winter and did not come back to life this spring.
Posted by Kevin Schulz, The Land Editor
