Crop year has been a challenge

No doubt this has been a challenging year for crops, with a long, wet spring and slow planting progress. Now the ground is dry in a lot of parts of Southern Minnesota. I just saw a crop and weather report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, saying that topsoil in the state ranked at 7 percent very short, 22 percent short, 64 percent adequate and 7 percent surplus.

The recent high temperatures and low amounts of rainfall have started to put stress on the crops, especially soybeans. We could use some good weather in the next month and a half to really bring yields back.

We haven't had much trouble with diseases so far this year. Farmers interested in more information about crop diseases that might be affecting their fields can find a lot of useful information at www.extension.umn.edu/cropdiseases.

Have a great week!