Mid-April snow pushing back seeding for many southeast farmers

On Saturday, Lee Stanley had his yard all plowed and cleaned out from the three-day blizzard last week.

Then that night, a whole new storm moved in and lasted to the next afternoon.

“It’s starting to melt but there are piles here, eight-, 10-foot piles all over the yard,” said Stanley.

Now, meteorologists are calling for more snow for Stanley’s area, near Gainsborough, in the coming weekend.

Stanley said the snow will be good for the soil — likely the second fall more than the first.

“I was disappointed when I did get out and about after the (first) storm. The yards are terribly deep because of the wind but I don’t know if it did the fields that much good because it just blew so hard it cleared a lot of the fields off and put it right in the yard where we don’t need it,” said Stanley.

He explained the second snow on the weekend left more on the fields.

“This is going to replenish a lot of soil moisture. It’s just going to be a late spring for us this year,” said Stanley.

Normally, Stanley said he aims for the last week of April or first week of May to get out and start seeding but the late snow is hindering things.

“Getting equipment ready to go that we’d normally be doing, everything’s buried again, and (it’s) hard to work on stuff and hard to bring in, with soft yards, to bring in fertilizer and chemical and seed and everything,” said Stanley.

It could be into the middle of May before Stanley can get on the fields, which isn’t a huge problem. Stanley said with the new equipment, they can cover a lot of ground if they get a good window and he’s usually got until about June 1 to get everything in the ground.

However, with prices where they are right now, Stanley said a lot of farmers are going to want to get as much crop in as possible and have good moisture to get a good crop so they can take advantage of those good prices.