It has been another year of varying results planting crops just in the northeast quarter of Indiana, but it is complete now except for areas being replanted. Channel Seed sales agronomist Chris Brazel covers that part of the state.
“Especially as you get east of Fort Wayne over there on the eastern side Allen County, those guys are still getting stuff up in the really early stages, whereas some of the dry areas, more to the north, those guys have got corn that’s above the knee and we’re well into side dress season there,” he told HAT. “So, a little bit of variation across the area but I would say we’re probably really close to 99% planted, the first time at least, and now we’re just looking at the replant situation for most of the area.”
He says early in the season some fields were too hot and too dry while others had incredibly wet conditions.
“Early on we were concerned about cool, wet conditions and that kind of held everybody up from going early, and then we had a really wet spot there and just kind of shut everybody down for probably at least two and a half to 3 weeks before we could get back going. And boy when we went, we went fast that’s for sure.”
Northeast Indiana and southeast Michigan growing season conditions now mirror that of planting season. It depends where you’re located.
“I think the guys more to the north and even into the southeastern part of Michigan, those guys are in fairly good shape where we’ve got a lot more sand and we don’t have some of the heavier ground, whereas when you move south down into Markle and that area, those guys have been incredibly wet.”
Although Brazel doesn’t have immediate concerns about the crop, he says as corn approaches V5, evaluate those fields, “focusing on crown rot issues, and it’s a critical time frame in this V3 to V6 range, to get a product like Delaro out there to help prevent those crown rot issues so that we can see better standability in our late season crops,” he said. “But it’s the amount of stress that we’ve had, whether it’s been dry weather stress in some areas, or been too wet in other areas. Anytime we have those stresses, it’s always a good idea to get something out there to kind of mitigate that stress, and a fungicide packed in there with that herbicide trip at V5 is a great way to do that.”
Brazel also said barley yellow dwarf virus, BYDV, has been spotted in wheat fields. Hear more on that in the full interview:
