South Dakota farmers are making good progress in the fields with planting now past 25-percent on corn and 8-percent on soybeans, which are ahead of average. Castlewood farmer Chad Schooley says field conditions are nearly perfect.

He says they didn’t have a lot of snowpack over the winter but received about four inches of rain in April and so they do have some subsoil reserves.

Schooley says they stuck with their normal acreage mix and were fortunate to buy their inputs early before fertilizer prices spiked.

And with the historically high grain prices he says that makes it even more enjoyable to plant the crop.

Schooley has taken advantage of the strong market and forward priced 15-percent of his new crop soybeans and 20-percent of his corn.