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Stick with corn through May

A University of Missouri Extension agronomist says Missouri growers should strongly consider sticking with corn planting until the end of May.

Bill Weibold tells Brownfield he looked at five years of planting data in central Missouri – along with four or five corn hybrids and says, “Every farmer, obviously makes their own decision, but I think there’s good reasons to grow corn in rotation and in income and I think we can still have some pretty good yields even if this wet weather’s going to delay us into the middle or later May.”

Wiebold also cautions about planting early maturing corn varieties because yield data would say to hang in there with normal hybrids until the end of May, although he says drying costs will go up, “But the problem with switching hybrids, you did a very good job of selecting high yield potential hybrids to purchase and now if you switch it’s just whatever’s available. And sometimes, that’s not high yield potential.”

Early hybrids also have to be planted at a higher rate. Wiebold says about four to five percent of yield potential has been lost for corn so far and by the end of May it’s about 20%. By the end of June, he says, it gets pretty extreme.