Spring Approaches METROGRO Farm After Challenging Winter
Though sprouting crops seem to be several months away for our snowy coated METROGRO Farm, it’s very much time to plan for the upcoming season. Planting contracts are at their 5-year renewal period and contracts are being reviewed. Soon crops like milo will need to be planted and last year’s winter wheat seeds will begin to awaken and emerge from the soil. It’s been a wild winter for the farm. The team is ready for longer days and warmer temperatures. Spring is approaching and things are going to start to pick up!
Winter snow can both help and harm crops at the farm. In October, heavy snow prevented roughly half of the milo crop from being harvested. Typically, a hardy crop, which can withstand the first snow of the season, the excessive snow in October caused the unharvested milo stalks to weaken and bend. This is a problem because harvesting equipment is unable to catch the stalks. As a result, that milo is left to the elements and slowly dies off.
On the flip side, very little snow followed the large October snowstorm which could affect another crop: winter wheat. The wheat is harvested at the end of summer and shortly afterwards, next year’s crop is planted. The wheat emerges from the seeds during the fall and then dies back with the first freeze where it is hardened and reemerges once again in the spring and grows until it is harvested. Without the buffer of needed snow during the first freeze, the wheat was exposed to the elements and furthermore, the dry winter created crusting in the soil which complicates things, but Farm Administrator Jason Zimbelman remains optimistic “we still had good moisture, and this wheat has been resistant.”
The wheat harvest took a hit last summer when hail and wind damage laid out a brutal one-two punch to the crop. Like several Colorado farms, the hailstorms in 2024 seen in both Northern Colorado and the Eastern Plains were particularly devastating at the METROGRO Farm. “We lost three to four thousand acres to the hailstorm alone,” explains Zimbelman. But not all was bad, in 2024 the wheat harvest resulted with 114,434 bushels hauled to the grain bins. The milo harvest saw 12,954 bushels hauled to the grain bins. In the bins, the crop is stored until it’s ready to hit the market.
Tapping into 2025
In addition to waiting to see what happens next with the upcoming spring, there will be plenty of projects on the farm to be done this year. The farm is looking to increase efficiency. To help, a water well will be drilled 75 to 100 feet into the ground to tap into the farm’s groundwater source which will in time provide access to water daily use and for fire safety. By having water wells on-site, this will eliminate the need to hire water trucks.
Like the years that proceeded it, 2025 is a roll of the dice as the farm begins the growing year. Soon seasonal employees will arrive, crops will sprout, and the elements will determine how the year will go. Some forecasts predict 2025 to have a similar year to last, but Zimbelman is optimistic. Whatever 2025 brings, the METROGRO Farm team is standing by.