On Your Marks, Get Ready, Get Set, DON’T GO!
That will be my statement for today, and possibly next week based on the forecasts we are looking at. With the variable rains we had this past week, and forecast rains and cool weather for the weekend, with a slow warm up for next week, I’m not too strong on recommending any corn planting yet. I know the forecast changes every 6 hours, so I may eat my words come next Tuesday. In fact, I have half a mind to look at planting my plot next Tuesday or Wednesday, but like I told a guy today, this is not necessarily our livelihood on the line.
I may be alright with planting beans next week if someone has the itch to go and really can’t sit still. If you remember my last blog, plant beans early, and “PLANT CORN RIGHT”.
As a Dekalb dealer, we have access to a pretty neat Emergence Risk tool. This tool takes into account current forecasts for air temperatures, soil temperatures, and rainfall. It then assigns a risk for corn emergence and specifically the imbibitional chilling of corn seeds.
Imbibitional chilling is when a seed’s first drink of water (within 24 to 48 hours) is cold and the swelling of the seed causes tissue damage that is unable to be repaired due to the coldness. When the seed imbibes warm water in warm soils, the seed’s own cell growth is able to repair the tissue damage from swelling and recover. This is not necessarily associated with the Germination scores of the seed lots, or the Seedling Vigor/Emergence scores on the seed charts. This can happen to any seed if the temperature and moisture are just so.
When I first got a look at this tool last week, I ran a quick scenario with planting on April 20th. The report did not have a Green (Good) day for planting until May 13th. All the other days were yellow (Caution) or Red (Alert). As you can see on the report, early next week is green, although I would caution that the ground may not be fit yet, otherwise we still have to go out to May 13th to find more green days. Also in the report, it shows that both planting on April 20 or April 27th led to corn taking 16 days to emerge, since it takes 125 heat units for corn to emerge, and we have cool weather upcoming. Remember back to the last blog when I quoted David Hula and Randy Dowdy, “you’ll never get 300 bu/acre if corn takes longer than 10 days to emerge.”
emerge risk plant date 4-20-26
emerge risk plant date 4-27-26
The guys at the fertilizer plants have the sprayers and spreaders ready, and we hope to get a good window to at least get some pre-Nitrogen and corn and soybean chemicals applied to have your fields READY, when you are SET to GO! Seed is being delivered, starter and chemicals are being delivered as well, and work orders are just waiting to be released.
I know we all get anxious to get the work done and get the planters going, but if I recall, some of the best corn in 2024 was planted in late May with ideal conditions, and last year’s corn was almost all entirely planted from May 6th to May 18th with almost perfect conditions and fast emergence.
We have accumulated enough heat units for Giant Ragweed to start emerging. Ragweed typically needs 150 heat units and soil temperatures just above 50 degrees. We have so far at New Hampton accumulated 157 heat units this spring. I usually see the fields that are just vertical tilled in the spring have Ragweed survive the light tillage pass, and if we aren’t aware of ragweed being along fence lines, terraces, or waterways, we miss the chance to kill it with our pre emerge applications. Most of the beans are getting sprayed with an herbicide combination including Authority First. I have been adding Crop Oil and AMS to the Authority First and it works well to kill any emerged Ragweed without having to add Roundup or something else in. On the corn side, if there is Incinerate, or something else containing either generic Callisto, or some Stinger in with the pre, that should take down some emerged Ragweed if the pre is being sprayed with 32%. If water is being sprayed, you’ll want to add some AMS and Crop Oil to that too.
Stay Safe as we get closer to Spring field work and the stress that goes with the season.
As always, reach out to me with any questions or concerns.
Bob Sobolik
641.330.1815
