Seeding Expected To Be Delayed In North Dakota

It's appears seeding south of the border will be delayed by a couple of weeks.

North Dakota Agriculture Commissioner Doug Goehring says in a normal year, farmers in the southern part of the state usually start putting seeding into the ground sometime around the second week in April. This year it will likely be around the end of April.

"We definitely recognize we're going to be getting into the field later this year, especially with the most recent snowstorm that came through," he commented. "It really impacted probably a good 40 per cent of our state."

Goehring notes the expected slow melt will help the flood situation, adding another bonus is that many parts of the state were dry heading into winter.

"That could help in our situation. In the southern end of the state, we actually had probably normal, maybe slightly above normal, but when you get into the central part of the state, we're about average and the further north you go, we had less, we had below normal soil moisture. That's going to help as a bit of a cushion providing some elasticity in the system."

Goehring says farmers may have to change their seeding intentions depending on how late they get into the field.

He notes the trade dispute with China could have an impact on the amount of soybean acres going into the ground this spring.

"For North Dakota anyways and the upper Midwest, that's our primary trade route and the basis is pretty poor. We've been seeing activity from China and yet the market just doesn't seem to reflect it. They seem to have stabilized right now but they should be going up considerably and considering what's happening in the corn belt, when it comes to row crops in general, we're not seeing much happening. Those guys should be planting here in the first part of April and from what we're hearing, they're going to be delayed a couple weeks. So that's going to start to affect a higher potential yield on the back end."

Goehring is a third-generation farmer near Menoken and has been North Dakota's Agriculture Commissioner since 2009.