Late harvest could have potential effects on Jasper County planting season

The 2019 harvest season brought with it many challenges, including lasting much longer than anticipated. Farmers across Iowa are now dealing with challenges in spring planting due to the delays last fall.

Eric Siebrecht, a Monroe farmer who works roughly 2,000 acres, knows all too well about the weather that kept him and other farmers an average of two weeks behind last year. Even though farmers got through the tough harvest they may still be behind moving into planting season.

“Harvest was no fun ... Usually we are probably done around Halloween and this year we were mid-November,’” Siebrecht said.

The problems didn’t start during harvest season but months earlier with a wet spring delaying planting season. The added moisture not only kept farmers out of the field, but also affected the early growth of crops, trigger additional delays.

We are kind of in this cycle of being behind on our fall fieldwork which then puts us behind on our spring fieldwork,” Iowa State Extension and Outreach Field Agronomist Meaghan Anderson said.

The conditions that had harvest being completed later than usual led to work needing to get done to prepare fields for planting being pushed, as well, Siebrecht said, which has the potential for affecting planting season. He has taken advantage of some weather breaks that came along this winter.

“Around Christmas I was putting anhydrous on just because the weather turned fit right there. There was a short little window around Christmas. Other than I would say in this area there is a lot of fieldwork to be done,” Siebrecht said.

Work in the field is completed following harvest to prepare for the next year, Siebrecht said. With the late harvest and snow flying not long after, many necessary tasks could not be done at the usual time before spring.

“Guys will have to get some of that fieldwork done,” Siebrecht said.

While last year brought with it difficult conditions for farmers that really pushed their schedules, Siebrecht said that if Mother Nature can cooperate with them and bring nice weather, farmers should be able to get themselves on schedule.

“If it stays decent and no snow and it warms up then I’m not necessarily as worried about it,” Siebrecht said.

Like many farmers, Siebrecht is playing catch up with his fieldwork, which is made all the more difficult when also competing with duties including calving.

“I mean you got to take care of that other stuff,” Siebrecht said.

While there is still waves of snow coming in, Siebrecht hopes farmers come spring enough good weather will give farmers time to get their field work done and plant crops in a more regular time line. “At least we get some nice weather and get out crop in a timely manner, it doesn’t get too wet. Because that hurt our yield last year was the real wet planting conditions we had. We got all that rain and we lost our nitrogen,” Siebrecht said.

Of course, nobody know what the weather will be in the coming months, but Anderson said if there is a repeat of last year’s condition, it is very likely the season will be delayed again.

“We are not ahead of the game right now,” Anderson said. “It is kind of setting ourselves up for a tough spring but I will also say that farmers are extremely resilient and the equipment that we have nowadays as well as the wherewithal that farmers have to be able to get things done in a timely manner is really, really impressive.”