SISSETON, S.D. - It's time.
It's time to finish planting, says Chad Pistorius, chatting ever-so-briefly before loading up his planting rig June 6. It was supper time but there's not much time for that. A snack in the cab of the tractor will have to do.
Chad, 46, farms with older brothers Todd and Jeff, who all live on the South Dakota side of the border. Todd's son, Trestin, also is in the operation. The family lives on the South Dakota side of the border but the farm's mailing address is Browns Valley, Minn. Chad's wife, Wendi, and mother, Donna, play a big part in keeping the planting crews fed.
On this day, Chad was planting about 12 miles from his home place north of Sisseton, S.D.
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He'd planted all of the corn he was going to get planted. "We didn't get everything (planted) we wanted to get in," he says of the corn acres.
The Pistorius family was still struggling with soybeans, and was still working on the last of it to finish up by June 11.
"I should be done - a long time ago," Chad said. The ground is actually saturated so bad that the hillsides are holding the water. A lot of last year's corn ground that's normally dry is holding excess moisture. "You can't find the wet spots before it's too late," he says. "You either get stuck or you're pulling out and leaving massive amounts of the field unplanted."
He says the pedestrian passerby might look at fields and thinks much of it was planted, but often don't see the 15- to 20-acre patch that goes unplanted. "There's plenty of acres that are PP (declared "prevented planting" for crop insurance coverage). He thinks about 10 percent of his land will be PP this year.
Just now he's trying to "at least get to" all of his fields, even if all of the acres don't get seeded. One goal is to get qualified for PP payments, he says.
"Just take the good ground, square up," he said. "Don't get next to the sloughs. It's not worth it."
Yes, he's been stuck a time or two this year.
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No elaboration asked. None offered.
Get'r done!!!
Oh yes, and Chad emphasizes it's also time to finish the trade negotiations so that things can get back to normal, Chad says.
A frustrating spring also includes Market Facilitation Program payments. The Trump administration is promising MFP cash payments as reparations to farmers because of retaliations over tariffs the U.S. has imposed on China.
But the 2018 payments aren't as good as some observers perceive, he says. He had 65 bushel-per-acre beans but the payments dollar amounts were capped so he got paid for only about 60 percent of those soybeans.
"People talk about, 'You got that payment,' but it didn't amount to much because we didn't get it" fully, Chad says.
The trade troubles have led to declines in bean prices to about $7.50 per bushel that "does not work," he says, flatly. He's tired of the political noise. "We've got the Democrats fighting against the Republicans," he says.
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Chad has been generally supportive of Trump administration efforts to correct trade imbalances with China. "I think he's got the right idea," he says. "We can't have this unfair trade but it's carrying on too long. I think it's not just hurting the farmer, but a chain reaction to everybody." Any hit on farmers will no doubt hurt the small towns, factories and other businesses that are already struggling to keep the young people at home.
"It's sad, but it's the way it goes," he adds. A one-half-inch rain was predicted for June 11 and could help the crop that's planted. Winds that made some of the last of the planting possible is now too strong to allow for some of the needed weed spraying, Chad says. That'll no doubt create yet another time crunch in the memorable planting season of 2019.
