Planting Time

This year has been a difficult one for farmers & cyclists. The cold weather has lasted longer than normal and the moisture levels have been way above normal. This has delayed the spring planting season here in eastern Iowa. Normally most of the corn would be planted by now. As it stands right now, less than 5% of the corn has been planted to date. This means that the next couple of weeks are critical as farmers try and get the seeds in the ground. If they go much past the 3rd week of May they will have to switch to a shorter growing season corn, which will lower their yields. This picture is typical of what you see across the landscape in the Iowa farm belt. Farmers eager to get into their fields run their disc once or twice around the field and discover the soil is too wet to put in their crop.

The last couple of days I have been able to get in 32-33 miles of biking in. The weather today was a little questionable, but with storm clouds threatening I was able to beat the rain.