Finally. Indiana farmers are staring at an actual planting window this week, and finally fields should be a swarm of activity. The state had a pretty wet Saturday but now it should start to dry out, according to HAT Chief Meteorologist Ryan Martin.
“It’s going to be mostly dry this week. My concern on moisture is at midweek Wednesday, Thursday. That’ll be about the time we see this fairly strong low passing through. It looks to me like it’s gonna be right there in the northern part of Mississippi, Alabama, southern Tennessee, so that’s close enough to try and throw some moisture up in the Ohio River Valley. Then as that low taps into moisture near the Carolina and Virginia coast, we’ll probably see a strong wraparound on the back side and maybe some clouds but not a lot of moisture. I think there’s going to be a ton of planting in the state this week.”
But Martin says it might be another day before the flurry begins.
“The reason for that is we had good rain this weekend. Cooler temperatures mean lower evaporation rates, so we’re probably not gonna be quite ready to go till midweek but once were ready, even though it’s cool, I think there’s going to be a lot of seed thrown in the ground. It probably works this time around because next week we’ve got moisture coming, but temperatures should be warmer next week, maybe even a little above normal, so it will be a warm rain. That will help out and overcome the cool soil conditions this week.”
So a good planting window is upon us, but how large is that window?
“I’ll put it to you this way. I heard a lot of talk last week about a 10 day window. No, you’ve got about five, maybe six days if you’re lucky and that includes what’s happening right now. Once guys get going if it really is midweek we probably have 4-5 days. I have moisture starting to ramp up probably Monday afternoon of next week. I would put it this way, this may be the biggest window we have. This isn’t time for eight, 10, 12 hour days. This is the time I think guys are going to go out there, put the pedal down and throw in as much as we can.”
Rural motorists, be advised, it’s going to get busy this week.