Another year, another planting season.
For soybean growers across the Upper Midwest, heading to the field to plant a new crop never gets old. What does get old, however, is pleading with Mother Nature to cooperate. But, despite the headaches, most farmers wouldn’t trade it for the world.
“Things are going pretty good for the most part,” said Northern Soy Marketing (NSM) Vice Chair David Struck, who farms in South Dakota. “We need rain bad, but it’s been nice for planting. If we don’t get some rain next week, we’re probably going to have to start irrigating.”
NSM Chair Glen Groth is in the same boat. On his farm in southeast Minnesota, he wouldn’t be opposed to watching rainclouds roll across the horizon.
“We’re hoping for a shot of rain,” Groth said. “It’s getting a little dry down here. And we’re a little behind on heat units because it was cold for so long.”
What there hasn’t been a lack of across NSM’s member states, South Dakota and Minnesota, is wind. In true Midwestern fashion, several conversations begin with “It wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t for the wind.” According to the May 19 issue of USDA’s Weekly Weather and Crop Bulletin, “the mid-week event was accompanied more broadly by non-thunderstorm-related high winds, which led to a rash of wildfires on the central and southern Plains, as well as a major dust storm across portions of the northern plains. … Visibility was reduced to less than a mile in some locations.”
“It’s been really windy here all spring,” Struck said. “The guys that conventional till have lost some topsoil but most of the no-till fields held good. But you get west of us, and they had to close roads because of the dust blowing.”
High winds have also made applying crop protection in a timely manner nearly impossible and has prevented many from spraying their crops because the wind will cause drift, carrying the product where it isn’t intended and potentially killing a neighbor’s crop.
“It’s been a bear for spraying,” Struck said. “When the sprayer guys can go, they go like crazy. But it’s been a lot of late nights and early mornings because it’s blowing most of the day. They’re pulling their hair out.”
Despite their wishes for Mother Nature to listen to them, overall, the 2026 planting season has gone off without a hitch.
“We’ve been pretty fortunate to really cover ground when we’re planting,” Struck said. “Once we got going, it went really well and the crop was planted in a timely fashion. We got our fertilizing done early this year, so we didn’t have to wait for that, which was really good and the beans are rolling right along. Things have gone well for us, for the most part.”
By May 24, 79 percent of the 2026 soybean crop was planted, which is four percentage points ahead of the five-year average. In Minnesota, 90 percent of soybeans had been planted by May 24, and 77 percent had been planted in South Dakota.
“Having dry fields at the end of planting and not having wet spots to go around was the highlight of this year’s planting,” Groth said. “The low this year was not getting rain when we want it because now, we have a little uneven emergence between lack of moisture and a bit of crust on top of the soil.”
