Cold temperatures delaying seeding in Mid-Missouri

The cold weather has been especially hard on farmers who can’t lay-down their crops until the weather warms up.

ABC 17 spoke with a locally farmer today, Jim Sontag, who has been farming all his life and said it’s the coldest and longest winter he has seen.

He is worried he will not be able to plant his soybeans in two weeks because the weather is too cold.

“The ground weather is too cold, it won’t sprout,” said Sontag.

Sontag told us the corn planters are in bigger trouble though, they are supposed to plant in mid-April, but it will not happen because the weather is too cold. There will be no germination.

Sontag farms 80 acres in Boone County and said that the delay can be very hard on farmers financially because it can effect the overall outcome of their crops.

“It puts everybody behind,” he said.

Even though, he is worried, he is optimistic that he can catch-up his crops.

Not only has it been a long and cold winter on farmers, but China, one of the United States largest soybean buyers is planning to add a 25-percent tariff on U.S. products sold to their country, which could also be financially devastating to American farmers.