Wisconsin's Spring Tillage Around 84% Complete

Tuesday, May 11th, 2021 -- 9:00 AM

(Wisconsin Ag Connection) With more than five days suitable for fieldwork, farmers spent much of the past week planting crops, hauling manure and wrapping up their tillage activity.

According to the Wisconsin Ag Connection, that's according to the Wisconsin Ag Statistics Service's weekly crop/weather report, which stated central and southern Wisconsin received some rain early in the week while the rest of the week was dry, windy and cool.

Overnight lows were in the 30s for much of the week with a widespread hard freeze on Friday night. However, cold and dry soil conditions have slowed crop emergence.  Topsoil moisture conditions were rated six percent very short, 21 percent short, 69 percent adequate and four percent surplus.

As of Sunday, nearly half of the state's corn crop had been plated. That was just two days behind last year, but five days ahead of normal. Reporters estimate that about five percent of the crop has already emerged.

Soybeans are 34 planted, one day better than 2020's progress and nine-days ahead of the five-year average.  Farmers have 82 percent of the oats in the ground, which is also ahead of schedule. About 48 percent of the crop is emerging.

The winter wheat condition was rated 88 percent good to excellent statewide, up two percentage point from last week.  And spring tillage was reported 84 percent complete, four days ahead of last year and two weeks ahead of the average.

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