Too Late for Corn?

April is almost over and not a whole lot of planting has been done. There were a few guys planting the last couple of days but there were more planters sitting idle than not. I have gotten a lot of calls from growers asking when it will be getting late to plant corn. That is an open-ended question.

It is very tempting to look at the calendar when making planting decisions. By looking at the calendar right now it may seem that we are a little behind schedule on corn planting progress. I would encourage you to look at the field conditions and not the calendar when making the decision to plant or not. We can plant a lot of corn in a short period of time. I would not start worrying about the date on the calendar until we get to around May 20^th on corn. Make sure your field conditions and ground temperature are right before putting any seed in the ground.

Beans can be a little more forgiving. I saw more bean planters rolling the last couple days than corn planters. I have seen beans that were planted in the first ten days of June yield very well, sometimes even better than mid-May planted beans. One grower who has close to 45 years of planting beans in this area told me the other day, “if it ain’t fit to plant corn it isn’t fit to plant beans.”  While this may be true, putting on a good treatment on your beans can allow you to plant a little earlier than you could without a treatment.

Take your time this spring and avoid the temptation to rush to the field because the calendar tells you to. If you would like someone to come out and look at your field for planting conditions give your SFG agronomist a call.