Eastern Indiana corn and soybean crops are showing as much variance as there were wide-ranging planting dates this spring. In a Channel Seed growing season update, Bill Schwieterman explains farmers planted in April, May and June this year.
“So, we’ve got crops somewhat spread out and we’re seeing that right now as we’re seeing the crop grow,” he said. “And we’re seeing different timing of tassels and through that stress period, guys are wanting to spray fungicide right now or this past week and we’re seeing just a wide kind of variation in some of the fields.”
Schwieterman is a Channel Seed dealer for YieldTECH Seed Service which covers Jay, Randolph and Adams counties in eastern Indiana. He says his farmers are not giving up on this crop.
“We do have areas that were hurt pretty hard with dry weather. We see some recent rains here in the last week certainly help some of the crop, not the whole area but a good portion of it got some rain, so we’re definitely feeling better about the crop. We certainly think that it’s still going to be a very solid crop overall.”
He tells HAT it has been somewhat quiet on the disease and insect fronts this year.
“I did get a report back from a farmer, a really good farmer out of Adams County, and he found evidence of some tar spot starting, but very little pressure. This is on a field that has had numerous years of pressure so he’s familiar with that kind of disease pressure, so he definitely paid attention to that field. But overall, very little tar spot if any, maybe a little bit of northern corn leaf blight, but again it’s been so dry I think it’s minimized our exposure to that risk of diseases.”
There have been Japanese beetles seen in soybeans and some corn flea beetles. The pressure is minimal, although with recent rains Schwieterman thinks the pressure could become more elevated. Hear more in the full HAT and Channel Seed growing season update:
