If you’ve heard Purdue Extension’s ‘Soybean Shaun’ Casteel speak before, you’ve heard him talk about “timely” soybean planting.
“We definitely need to be thinking about it in the April period when we have soil temperatures that are marking around that 50-degree mark and looking to go up.”
Casteel explains on the latest Purdue Crop Chat Podcast that there is a big difference between early planting and timely planting. The podcast is available now on the free Hoosier Ag Today mobile app or wherever you listen to podcasts.
“I know that there are plenty that push it a little earlier than that, or more suspect, but in those situations, we’ve got to make sure that we’re getting the stand established. And so, if we’re going in April just because it’s April, and the seed bed is just open seed slots, you can live with it if you get timely rains. But if you don’t, boy, that is just going to follow you all season long.”
He says when he gets texts from farmers or other agronomists about their March planted beans, he often replies with, “That’s okay. My beans haven’t lost their stand yet. They’re still in the bag!”
His counterpart at Ohio State is conducting research about early planted soybeans.
“March is definitely early. April can be early. It could be timely. It depends on the field conditions. But she’s got some March beans that were really, really struggling because of stand establishment, the cold temperatures, the frost/freeze. I think stand establishment was crazy low, like in the 40-50 thousand. So, I want a good stand. You’ve got to have plants out there. Obviously, beans can branch and make up a lot of ground but let’s at least give them a fighting chance to get a fairly uniform stand and emergence.”
Hear more from Casteel and Dan ‘Corn’ Quinn in the Purdue Crop Chat, available below.
