Producers getting late minute seeding for the summer growing season

OLIVER COUNTY, N.D. (KFYR) - Each day is important for Ag producers, making last-minute decisions for this year’s summer growing season. Farmers are seeing higher input costs, but higher prices at the grain elevators.

“So, here’s our fertilizer tanks and the seed corn is in the boxes,” explained Oliver County producer Mikael Schmidt.

Mikael Schmidt is ready for this year’s seeding at the family farm.

“Usually, we like to spray ahead but weather conditions haven’t been conducive for doing a lot of that,” said Schmidt.

Schmidt isn’t affected as much by rising fuel costs because he said he bought a year’s worth of fuel and seed early in the year.

“Conditions are right and our stuff is bought. We spent our money in January to put the crop in, most of it. So, I mean, we’re kind of committed to putting it in,” said Schmidt

A tradeoff for better soil moisture this spring is one of the reasons producers said they couldn’t get started on fieldwork because of the April and May blizzards.

“If we could have gotten that snowstorm about three weeks earlier, I think a lot of, on the farm side of things, it would’ve been a little bit nicer, getting some of those small grains in,” said extension agent Tyler Kralicek.

Kralicek stays busy answering farmers’ questions and said they’re watching crop prices as the growing season continues.

Commodity prices are up and other producers we talked with still want to wait out the market until harvest season.

The growing season starts around April or May and continues through October.

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