News
Farmers rushing to get corn planted before rain hits the Corn Belt
Cassandra Smith posted on April, 22 2010 at 7:45 am
Lightning-fast planting pace will be slowed by widespread rains this weekend, next week, forecasters say
- Jeff Caldwell, Agriculture.com Multimedia Editor
Monday\'s USDA Crop Progress report confirmed that corn farmers in the Midwest spent a lot of hours in the tractor cab last week. And, with the mostly warm, dry weather pattern to continue through this week, many farmers expect even greater planting strides.
\"The date on the calendar is now becoming less and less of a factor in farmer\'s decisions on whether to plant or not, and with dry/warm weather early this week before big rains move in for the end of the week, I think that farmers will tend to \'push\' things and this will be an extremely big week for corn planting across the nation,\" said ag meteorologist Charlie Notis with Des Moines, Iowa-based Freese-Notis Weather, Inc. on Tuesday.
\"The most corn ever planted in any week on a national basis in recent years is in the 30% to 35% range, and I think that we might be able to score a week close to that for next Monday\'s numbers,\" he adds. \"My guess for the national corn planting progress figure for the week ending April 25 would be somewhere in the 46% to 50% range, which would easily make this the fastest corn planting pace ever seen.\"
In a recent Agriculture.com AgPoll, half of the farmers responding say they\'re ahead of schedule, with another 28% saying they\'re right on time so far. But, while corn planting is trending generally ahead of the normal timeframe thus far, farmers say that\'s not true everywhere. While some responding to the poll say they\'re already near completion, others are waiting out either lingering cool soil temperatures or rain fall.
The contrast in the latter is sharp: One south-central Nebraska farmer said last week he was waiting for the ground to dry after a 2-day rain event, while a farmer in south-central Kansas added \"Lots of corn has been planted here...along with every pivot running just to get it to come up. My area has not had any rain for 6 weeks now.\"
To read full article go to:
http://www.agriculture.com/ag/story.jhtml?storyid=/templatedata/ag/story/data/1271817495110.xml
It is clear that crops are not getting planted at the normal times for everyone across the country. When you are out selling product you need to pay attention to what the weather is allowing the farmers to do. Get out in the field and see where the grower is at in his program and how our products can be easily added to that program at the right application times. If you are behind in a growers program with one product consider what other products still have application windows ahead. The crops are facing a potentially very unusual growing season and our products can help to get these crops growing quickly and healthily.