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A Mild Winter While Good for You, Potentially Bad for Crops

By Scott Sarvay
February 22, 2012 Updated Feb 23, 2012 at 8:33 AM EDT

FORT WAYNE, Ind. (Indiana’s NewsCenter) -Farmers are already feeling the effects of our mild winter.

Weeds are already starting to pop up in fields before farmers even have the chance to plant crops.

And right now, fields are too wet to begin work.

And since temperatures rarely stayed below the freezing mark for long, not many insects were killed.

Farmers are expecting more bugs this year and earlier than usual.

Gonzalee Martin with the IPFW Extension Office says, “We know at the end of the last growing season, we had a major problem with insects, but it was okay. A lot of those insects just over-wintered here in the soil, and the insects are going to come out much earlier.”

Farmers can't begin work until their fields are drier.

But they typically want their crops in the ground by mid to late March.



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