There’s not much Mower County farmers can do, other than hope that the weather doesn’t continue to dampen their efforts for a decent harvest in the upcoming weeks.

Southeast Minnesota saw a series of severe thunderstorms rolling through the area this week, with some areas of Mower County experiencing flash flooding and “above average” amounts of rainfall, according to the National Weather Service in La Crosse (NWS).

The whole year was considered tumultuous at best for farmers, who’ve experienced wetter than usual spring and fall weather, which delayed the start to the planting season and in turn delayed the start of harvest until the end of September or beginning of October.

Those who are out on the fields have already felt the mounting pressure of trying to maximize their planting and harvesting seasons despite the inconsistent weather conditions. Despite receiving more than four inches of rain this week, rural LeRoy farmer Russ Roe shared that his corn and soybean fields were still in pretty good condition.

“Really there is no threat, other than try to wait for the fields to dry out,” Roe said. “More people are concerned about cattle and dairy. (The rains) pushes harvest back, and most of the corn and soybeans aren’t ready yet to be harvested. It’s not going to be the biggest impact, at least it’s not gonna be unless (the rain) continues for the next three weeks.”

It’s unknown as to how the rainfall would impact yields once harvest time comes around, but farmers are already anticipating lower than average yield production than what they would normally gather during this time of year. Although it’s too soon to tell how the yields would be impacted, Grand Meadow farmer Marlin Fay predicted that the area farmers would possibly see their yield average yield production be lower by 10 to 15 percent than it normally would be around this time.

“Whole yield is gonna be a guessing game,” the Mower County Farm Bureau president said. “Especially with corn. We’re talking to some farmers and there’s gonna be some good crops, and some poor crops. Where we fall between for average, we’re certainly not going to be on the top end. Some will have some pretty good yields.”

From the way things stand, if there’s drier weather, some soybean crops can be harvested near the end of September, but the majority would be delayed until October. Corn would also be harvested later because of the late planting and higher moisture gained during this season.

This amount of rainfall in Mower County is considered “a little above average,” said Clint Aegerter, NWS meteorologist. From Jan. 1 through Friday morning, Austin received 31.87 inches of water as its year-to-date average, which was four inches up from the average of 27.9 inches that the county normally receives during the same range of time.

But, this doesn’t mean that Austin is by any means reaching historic amounts. The current record-holder for the total year-to-date rainfall amount was 41.31 inches in 1993, meaning this year’s totals have ranked far below this year’s current precipitation total.

“It can happen anywhere in our area, including Austin,” Aegerter said. “It’s a large amount of rainfall and it’s above normal, so it does happen. It seems to happen within the last few years that we get stuck in a pattern of repeated rounds of thunderstorms and get up to five to six inches of rain in some spots.”

Severe weather means a delay in harvest. For many farmers in the area, the rainfall hasn’t impacted their crops too badly, rather the time to get the combines out onto the fields would be delayed until the ground is dried.

That was the case for Mike Merten, a rural Austin farmer and member of the Mower County Corn and Soybean Growers, who has been concerned with the amount of rainfall that saturated his fields. It could be worse, he said, but the timing could be a lot better too. A recent dry spell that happened a few weeks ago actually may have caused more damage to his crops than the recent rains did, but there isn’t too much concern for how his crop would fare for now.

“The cause of concern now going forward is whether we are going to dry out before the combines have to roll in the fields and the tillage needs to be done,” Merten said. “We’re just hoping for drier weather from here on till harvest without too much mud.”

A waiting game

There’s some bad news for those looking to seek relief from the wet and humid conditions, as it’s looking like the area will continue to see more rain going into the next week.

There will be a bulk of heavy rains happening over the weekend, with a possible break on Monday and Tuesday, Aegerter observed. The highest amount of rainfall is expected to accrue somewhere south and east of Austin. From these conditions, there’s a higher likelihood of more flash flooding, and for hillier terrain, potential mudslides from overly saturated ground.

“There’s more chances for the storms moving in, and it looks to be a longer term for above normal precipitation,” Aegerter said. “There may be a break day here and there, but the weather pattern will continue for the next couple of weeks. Just need everyone to be weather vigilant and not drive through flood waters. That’s the biggest thing.”

Whether this had a definite impact on this year’s yield once harvest starts is hard to say. This year was a difficult one for farmers, and after trying to optimize production as well as plant during seasons where there was frequent severe weather, they can only hope for the best.

“It is just a wait and see,” Fay said. “As long as we trend drier, we could still harvest the crop in good conditions. With the weather we’ve had throughout the whole year with wet conditions in the spring and continuing this fall, it’s caused a lot of variability in the fields. There are some who have very good fields, but we’ve had too much moisture, some had hail damage in places and some wind damage back in July. All those things combined into a lot of variability to the crop. We replanted a lot of the crop later than ideal, so that probably caused some yield reduction too.”

For many in agriculture, this type of weather is disheartening when much of their livelihood depends on the work they do to prepare for the harvest. There’s growing concern for ear mold and stalk rot for the corn plants if exposed to constant, excessive moisture.

“As farmers, you just kind of look at the forecast and either want rain and hope that you get some of that, or you’re hoping that maybe it’ll miss us,” Merten said. “But, we don’t control it. We’re gonna do what we’ve got to do. Farming isn’t perfect. Hopefully the next few storms goes through, and at this point, we’ll still be in good shape. If the soybeans start drying out, the pods will pop.”

But, they continue to work, wet weather and all, and try to focus on the task at hand.

“I’m concerned we’re gonna be fighting some awful wet conditions, and it’s going to have to really dry out to recover from the most recent rains,” Mertern said. “That’s farming for you. We’re always facing headwind or some challenge, you know. We try to be optimistic and look for good harvest conditions.”