Spring Outlook

“When we started this year, the outlooks weren't all that great for a big part of the state, looking at 3 to 4 month outlooks.” The winter of 2016 started with snow, lots of it. Then, “the snow shut down a little bitin early January. We had some high pressure”. High pressure that held through February. Then… "And then, two weeks ago today we had a weather pattern change.” Change that ended the number one annual concern for Idaho farmers. At the Big D ranch near Meridian, owner Richard Durrant checks snowtel data every day and likes what he sees in mid-March. "Just in the last two weeks we have gone from 90% of normal to 115% of normal snowpack in the mountains so at this point the water supply for this year looks pretty good so we will have all the acres planted and it will keep us busy.” With the water supply plentiful, the Durrant’s have turned their attention elsewhere. While the tractors sit idle due to wet spring weather on this day, the selling price of the commodities they grow has son Neil who oversees the planting at the Big D concerned going into the 2016 season. "It's not great right now. We’re off about 30%, where we were last year for corn and wheat, our sugar beets are still holding pretty steady, we are talking 42 to 45 a ton so we are happy about that. Hay prices have dropped off from mid-150s to 160s down to about 100.” So the Durant's will do what farmers do every year. Plant a crop, think positive and wait for mother nature to speak and adjust accordingly. "Right now there is just nothing out there that says it will go down much more but nothing's really saying it's going to go up unless we get some disasters or some good yields. Right now I'm just waiting to see what the next couple of months are going to bring, once things come out of dormancy in the Midwest and see how their planting intentions go.