Some Marathon County farmers are feeling the effects of the recent winter storm.

They say the snow is making it difficult to harvest corn and soy beans.

Town of Easton farmer James Juedes has about 40 acres of corn ready for harvest, except his field is covered in more than six inches of snow.

"It's a pain in the butt really," said Juedes. "I mean this is something you don't usually get until December."

Juedes says the snow makes it difficult for farming equipment to move around and collect the corn needed to feed his cows.

"[The snow] insulates the ground and the ground is wet and there's no frost like that so we're going to be chewing up a lot of mud," said Juedes.

A farming expert from the UW-Extension say about 70 percent of the corn fields in Marathon County are still standing.

She says these are signs of a tough year in farming.

"With the moisture problem we had at the beginning of the year," said Heather Schlesser, Marathon County UW-Extension Dairy Agent. "We had a hard time getting it in, we had a hard time getting it to grow and now that we have snow, we're having a hard time getting it off."

Another crop affected by the snow in Marathon County is the snow bean crop. Schlesser says most of the beans on the plant grow at the bottom, making the snow-covered fields a total loss because they can't be harvested.

"For beans you could probably easily talking four to five hundred dollars per acre," said Schlesser. "You're talking thousands of dollars, just to put it in fertilizer alone is going to cost a thousand dollars."

Farmers say while the snow-covered soy beans likely can't be recovered, most of the corn can.

"It's just going to take time and that we just have to wait," said Juedes.

Farmers say they want to see drier weather.

Despite the hard year for farming, farming leaders say that the alfalfa and hay crops were good this year.

Source - http://www.myfoxwausau.com/