DATCP: Gov. Doyle lifts road weight limits to give farmers more time to harvest crops

Contact: Donna Gilson 608-224-5130

MADISON — Wisconsin’s wet autumn has led Gov. Jim Doyle to issue an executive order allowing farmers to haul overweight loads on most roads to get their crops to storage or processing.

The order will last through the end of December, except for the Christmas holidays, Dec. 24-27, and exempts vehicles from weight restrictions if they are carrying corn, potatoes, cranberries and soybeans to storage or processing. These loads can exceed weight limits by 15 percent. Farmers must meet all other vehicle requirements for size, operation and driver qualifications, and cannot travel on roadways with special weight restrictions or on most interstates. The only portion of the interstate system included in the exemption is I-39 between Hwy. 51 and I-90/94 in northern Dane and southern Columbia counties.

“Unseasonably cool and damp weather has resulted in significantly above-average crop moisture in the state’s soybean and corn crops, and it will take through December for the crops to be harvested,” the Governor’s order reads in part, and says the order is necessary “to avoid a disastrous loss of the 2009 harvest.”

Normally, virtually all of the state’s soybean crop and nearly 90 percent of the corn crop is harvested by this time. But a cool summer delayed development, and by the time crops were ready for harvest, the wet fall had set in, keeping farmers out of the fields. As of Monday, Wisconsin Agricultural Statistics Service was reporting that only 59 percent of the corn crop was in, and 94 percent of the soybeans. To make matters worse, the wet fall means a higher-than-normal moisture content for crops, so the loaded vehicles carrying the harvest are heavier than usual.

Agriculture Secretary Rod Nilsestuen asked the Governor for the exemption at the request of a coalition including the Wisconsin Agri-Service Association, the Wisconsin Corn Growers Association and the Wisconsin Farm Bureau.

Since 2005, Wisconsin law has granted an automatic exemption to roadway weight limits from Sept. 1 to Nov. 30 for vehicles carrying harvested crops. “The Legislature could not have anticipated the extreme conditions of 2009 that create the need for higher weight limits to transport the harvest beyond Nov. 30 through the end of the year,” Nilsestuen said in his letter to the Governor.