News

“Stay the course for now” on full season corn

An extension crops educator says farmers in the Upper Midwest are running out of time to plant full-season corn.

Dave Nicolai with the University of Minnesota tells Brownfield the sweet spot for optimum yields doesn’t usually go beyond mid-May.

“We have questions every year from growers about changing perhaps a certain percentage of their corn hybrid maturity makeup and exchanging that for something a little bit later. But I know a lot of the seed suppliers really want to hold onto that for now for obvious reasons.”

He encourages growers to “stay the course” for now and says planting conditions still mean more than a date on the calendar.

“We want to avoid that soil compaction, smearing, sidewall compaction with the planter, all of those typical things that we typically talk about in terms of preparation.”

Nicolai says a bigger issue in his state has been the lack of planting progress for small grains and sugarbeets.