Corn and soybean planting is pretty well wrapped up in West Central Indiana.
“I would say 99 percent planted and yeah, we’ve been all over the board. We have guys that are just finishing up planting within the last week or so, but we have guys that are already side dressing some corn,” says Blake Russell, Technical Agronomist for Channel Seed. In a Channel Seed growing season update he says there have been some ups and downs this spring.
“All our crops seem to emerge in a really good window. Corn and beans were in that two week or less time frame where we had some heat there at the end of April to 1st of May and that really pushed things along. Then here recently we just had some really cool nights especially here in mid-May that have slowed it down a little bit, but emergence and uniformity look great.”
Russell added, “In terms of damage, we had a big windstorm go through about a week and a half to two weeks ago up in Benton County, part of my territory, and it really caused a lot of damage to soybeans. Some growers commented they had 80-mile per hour plus winds for over 30 minutes. It caused a lot of beans to have a lot of sandblasting or damage and unfortunately had to do a lot of replant in those situations.”
Much of the replanting has been completed but spotty rains have stalled some of that, including Wednesday showers. But a dry and warmer period is coming and it will be a welcome change from very cool weather this month.
“We can see corn really growth stage-wise really hasn’t moved in about a week or so, but definitely like that to see our corn start to grow and soybeans as well, especially some of the later stuff to help get it out of the ground and get moving,” he told HAT. “It looks like we’re going to be getting some warmer temperatures. I expect everything to green up and look really good here in the next week or so.”
Russell says it is important now to get out and scout.
“We’ve had a very mixed bag. It was a little bit warm but now we’ve been cool and damp, so just looking at trying to protect our crop as best as we can, so whether that’s maybe a fungicide early for corn at V5, or just looking at our herbicide, our second pass where we’re putting it in there to make sure we’re controlling our weeds. So just trying to make sure everything is kind of going to plan and then trying to prepare for the next month or so.”
(Sandblasted soybeans photo provided by Blake Russell)
Hear more in the full HAT and Channel Seed growing season update:
