You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows – or the snow flies during a difficult start to #Plant18 in many parts of the U.S.

While complaints about the weather are hardly new, this year adverse conditions affected a wide swath of the country, north to south and east to west. Growers posting the first comments of the season on Feedback From The Field had plenty to say about conditions that look more like February than mid-April.

“Frost is 18" to 2' deep, just had 12" - 20" snow plus blizzard and another 5" - 8" forecast for Wednesday,” said a producer southeast of Minneapolis. Minnesota and the rest of the upper Midwest were ground zero for the massive winter storm that swept across the country over the weekend. ”No field work until at best May 10^th,” predicted this producer.

“Looking at 2 feet of snow from the blizzard we just got,” said another grower from the Gopher State.

Further south in Iowa fields were hit by rain and snow, with little activity reported. “Saw one field of oats mudded in Friday before the winter weather hit again,” reported a farmer in Iowa. ”Doubt little corn will be planted in April here in northwest Iowa this year due to cold temps and precipitation.”

“Cold and wet” were also the mantra in Illinois, where equipment was parked.

South of Indianapolis, lowland fields were flooding. In the northwest part of the state another Hoosier lamented: “Still snowing and 28 degrees. Wet.”

“Like everyone, cold and wet,” added a Michigan grower. “I want it to be hot enough we can complain about it!”

Heavy rains caused problems for growers further south, where some corn and soybeans are in the ground. Corn was called only fair in Texas to very poor in Louisiana. But conditions were better in North Carolina, where corn was fair to excellent.

Initial rating for winter wheat were mostly fair to good, better than USDA reported this week.

Click this Feedback From The Field link to rate crops in your area and provide planting progress in your fields. We’ll update reports with the interactive map below that lets you see what other growers are saying around the country. Click the box in the upper left-hand corner to bring up the weekly index; scroll down to see the most current week.

Feedback From The Field - April 16, 2018 - Interactive tool helps growers share conditions.