Wet Winter Having No Effect on 2019 Crop Outlook

A wetter-than-normal winter season in the Upper Cumberland isn’t effecting the current 2019 crop outlook for area farmers just yet.

Putnam County Agriculture Extension Agent Wayne Keys said previous rainfall won’t effect spring planting unless weather patterns continue over the next several weeks.

“We could have some dry weather in the next six to eight weeks causing our spring planting dates to be dry,” Keys said. “During the El Nino period of wet weather that we’re in, it is very likely though that wet weather is going to continue through the spring and push back some of the spring planting later in the month of May, possibly.”

Keys said the wet weather could likely effect farmers using richer soil in the area, but added that type of soil is typically uncommon in the region.

“We could have some leaching of nitrogen and some of the nutrients in the soil will leach out with the amount of rain that we’ve had,” Keys said. “But that’s very unlikely in this part of the country. Typically that happens in very sandy soils and coastal-type soils, so it shouldn’t be a big problem. But that is a possibility on some sandy soils if we have any of that around the county.”

Keys said a lot of the prep work conducted by farmers to combat wet weather was done before the winter and that not much can be done now before spring planting.

“Most of our farmers have already planted cover crops back in the fall so that the soil is covered, so we shouldn’t have any erosion issues during the wet weather,” Keys said. “Getting our equipment ready, getting those planters greased, getting plates in the equipment ready to go, having tractors serviced… That’s the biggest thing they can do now, farmers can. Get their seed ordered, get a good price on their seed now, and be ready to go when the weather does get dry.”

The Cookeville area set a new rainfall record in 2018 with just over 82 total inches, surpassing the previous mark set in 1998 when the record was just under 77 inches.