Farm fields in the eastern Corn Belt received heavy rainfalls. A market analyst shares how recent weather systems have impacted spring planting.
The Chicago O?Hare area received sizable rains over the past week, reports Jim McCormick, branch manager of Ag Market Net.
?We?ve had about eight inches of rain, most of it coming in the last week. That made us the wettest May on record, beating last year – the previous wettest on record, which beat the previous year?s wettest record,? McCormick said. ?We?ve had three years of wet weather in a row. The difference this year is the rain came in the middle, a condensed area.?
Large rainfall totals were not isolated to the Chicago O’Hare area.
?As that rain moved east, it dropped a lot of heavy precipitation across parts of Indiana, Ohio, and Michigan. What we?re hearing is we?re in the same boat as last year. There?s a lot of talk that we could see up to half a million to a million acres in the eastern Corn Belt being prevent planted, depending on how the weather plays out in the next couple weeks,? McCormick said.
Parts of the Dakotas remain wet, and farmers will soon have to make a decision as to whether or not to replant.
“They’re running up on their prevent plant deadline,” McCormick said. “The talk within the industry is you’re going to see one-and-a-half to two-million acres of that part of the country not getting planted. We could see up to three-million acres not getting planted.”
“The one thing we?re seeing different this year compared to last year (is) the Trump Administration made some adjustments to policies last year, and said if you wanted to collect some of that MFP payment, the crop had to be planted. We do not have that incentive this year,” McCormick said.
