This Summer’s Weather Present Challenges for Local Farmers

Friday, August 16th, 2024 -- 9:00 AM

(Danielle Nauman, Dairy Star) The weather this summer has presented challenges for many Wisconsin farmers.

According to Danielle Nauman with Dairy Star, across central Wisconsin, many fields have been left unplanted and hay harvests have fallen behind schedule. “We finished first crop haylage last week and we’re still working on baling dry cow hay,” Ben Seehafer said. “Our second crop is ready to cut now too.”

Seehafer operates Seehafer’s City View Dairy near Marshfield. They milk 270 cows on his Marathon County dairy farm, located near the Wood County line, and farms 600 acres.

Seehafer admits he has lost track of how much rain has fallen at his farm since the abnormally wet weather began in late April, noting that the nearby Marshfield Research Station in Stratford documented 18.82 inches from April through June.

According to the National Centers for Environmental Information, Marathon County received 16.89 inches of rain from April through June, making 2024 the third wettest April-June in the past 130 years.

Neighboring Wood County received 18.58 inches during the same time period, making it the wettest April-June period in the past 130 years for that county. A local television station reported that the Marathon County city of Wausau saw 5.87 inches of rainfall in July, nearly two inches more than average.

August 1, Seehafer said he measured four inches of rainfall at his farm and heard reports of as much as seven inches received only a few miles away. Significant rainfall was expected to impact the area again on Aug. 5.

“It’s such a kick in the butt, every time it rains, it’s nearly an inch or more,” Seehafer said. “Going in, it was dry, scary dry. We had a busy spring. We hosted a tour for the local technical college and the local FFA alumni dairy breakfast in June. I thought we were going to hit it hard. I remember thinking, ‘I bet we’ll be done with first crop before the breakfast.’”

Reality was different. “We didn’t start planting corn until June 10,” Seehafer said. “The last corn I planted this year was July 20. That breaks my previous record of July 17. We didn’t get everything in we wanted, but mainly what didn’t get done was hay fields we had planned to terminate after first crop. We just left those in hay. We planted around 300 acres of corn and had to replant over 30 of those.”

Seehafer’s corn crop this year runs the gamut from corn that looks exceptional to corn that has barely sprouted. “Everywhere you go there is corn that looks bad, corn that should be twice as tall as it is and brown spots everywhere,” Seehafer said. Nearly 26 miles due north, Bruce Gumz and his family milk 60 cows at Tri-G Farms near Dorchester in Marathon County.

Gumz farms 1,000 acres and has had about 26 inches of rain so far this growing season. Gumz said nearly 25% of his planned corn acreage, over 100 acres, remains unplanted. Also, he only has 30 acres out of a planned 500 acres of soybeans planted.

“What we got in is up and down,” Gumz said. “It’s green but you can see it is really suffering from compaction, it’s just not doing well. It’s about two-thirds the size it should be, some is about three feet and some over six, all pushing tassels. I would say about 40% of what is planted is maybe okay. Our (brown midrib) corn for chopping looks rough. If we get an early frost, it’s going to be bad.”

Gumz said the lack of stalk height will affect tonnage, and, at this point, he’s hoping what is there will put on good ears. “Even if it’s short but puts on good cobs, the starch might be okay,” Gumz said.

“We won’t know that until we start chopping.” Both farmers said they feel confident that between the remaining feed stores from 2023 and the high volume of first crop, they will have sufficient feed for the upcoming winter.

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