One of the advantages of advancing age is the ability to start worrying earlier. For farmers who essentially do the same things at the same times each year, we gradually accumulate a mental file of what those years were like. Most fade into a mass of average growing seasons, but those with particular problems stick in memory more clearly.
For our farm, many ghosts of the past that haunt me are wet years. And even though it’s only the first of April, my brain has decided “why wait until the last second to begin fretting?” While the northern Midwest coped with snow and storms, until March our winter was remarkably mild albeit short on sunshine. A lot of fieldwork was completed in mid-winter. Then after that deceptively warm, dry February, the familiar “cruelest month” began to live up to its name.
On the bright side, our worries from last year about soil moisture inventory are laid to rest, but the specter of a Wet Spring now looms larger. Mid- and long-range forecasts, which we have come to trust more each year speak consistently of colder and wetter than usual days ahead.
Unlike abnormally dry years, soggy ground can’t be corrected with one thunderstorm overnight. Not only does the rain have to stop, but we will need wind and sun for days before we set foot in fields.
Our strange habit of seeking out news of areas even worse off to make us feel better really only concentrates our anxiety. Recollections of Seasons from Heck expand to apocalyptic proportions with each recitation. Even our determined efforts to look on the bright side, like congratulating ourselves for doing a lot of drainage work is thin comfort.
I think my own concerns originated in the words of a climatologist decades ago when he predicted larger and more frequent rain events as the climate changed.
The Corn Belt is a mashup of too wet and too dry every year, and each farm has its own unique weak spot. Around here, a delightful series of relatively benign planting seasons has undoubtedly encouraged that fabled false sense of security, encouraging some to push the limits of machines, humans, and productivity.
If you already run extended hours and enormous machines, what happens when the time available is shrunk drastically? No wonder we hate wet planting seasons. They are the worst. Except for wet harvests, of course.
