Planting season rolling along despite coronavirus closures
Vermilion Parish farmer Christian Richard watches rice being loaded into a trailer he will haul to a local rice mill. The rice is from last year’s crop that he recently sold. (Photo: Bruce Schultz/LSU AgCenter)
By Olivia McClure and Bruce Schultz, LSU AgCenter
BATON ROUGE — Many schools and workplaces have closed up shop amid the coronavirus pandemic.
But in the world of agriculture, the show must go on. In Louisiana, this is rice and corn planting season — a busy and important time of year for farmers, who also will soon begin planting other crops such as soybeans and cotton.
“We’re wide open,” said Jason Waller, who grows rice, corn and soybeans in Mer Rouge in northern Louisiana. “They don’t let us take off from work or let us stop. Everybody’s got to eat.”
“Everything’s a go right now as far as corn planting is concerned in Louisiana,” said LSU AgCenter corn specialist Dan Fromme.
Corn farmers just started planting last week, with only about 5% to 10% of the state’s corn in the ground so far, Fromme said. He predicts Louisiana will have 550,000 to 600,000 acres of corn this year — a slight increase from 2019.
Farmers in some areas have been hindered not by coronavirus-related problems but by a more familiar foe: the weather. Rain has made many fields too wet for operating planting equipment.
“Most of the farmers I’ve talked to have had to jump around a little bit to find some dry ground,” Fromme said.
“We need dry weather badly,” said Waller, who is planting corn now and struggling with wet ground conditions. “The weather has just not been very cooperative this year.”