The rains that fell on Weld County last week finally gave the green light to many local wheat growers needing to move forward with fall planting, and they brought peace of mind to farmers who had already put their seeds in the ground.
“I had been a little nervous,” Rich Huwa, a Keenesburg-area farmer, said with a laugh, referring to the wheat he had planted in dry soil during recent weeks.
At the start of last week, 72 percent of the state’s farmground was “very short” in subsoil moisture, with only 3 percent having “adequate” subsoil moisture, according to a report released the previous week by the National Agricultural Statistics Service’s Colorado office.
A new report will be out this week that should show how much last week’s rain helped improve those figures, but as far as Huwa is concerned, the 1½ inches he received in his neck of the woods was “just what was needed.”
Winter-wheat planting in northeastern Colorado is typically well underway by now, starting around Sept. 1 and going into mid-October to grow a crop harvested the following summer.
But with fields parched and lacking subsoil moisture critical at planting time, few farmers in Weld County have been moving forward.
Finally, for those needing to plant, 0.8 inches of rain gradually dropped over the Greeley area from Monday night to Thursday night — the bulk of which came Wednesday evening, according to the National Weather Service.
Some other areas in Weld County received even more rain.
“I think this will give farmers a lot more confidence,” said Bruce Bosley, a Colorado State University Extension crop-systems specialist.
