Pioneer agronomist Eric Miller says things are looking pretty good in his area of East Central Indiana. The only issue he’s come across here early on has been some uneven emergence in the corn crop.
“You think about some of those earlier planted April planting windows that were in lines of some rains afterwards, I think we’re going to just have to accept a little bit of mortality due to leafing out underground or the effects of some chilling injury, things like that in the corn crop. But, as a whole, the stands are going to be very acceptable.”
Miller is concerned about some soybeans as well.
“The three or four frost/freeze events, especially if you think about the northern half of Indiana, they touched up some beans pretty good. There’s going to be some, what I’m calling, soybean carcasses in the field when you’re out scouting this week. The beans were there, and then they got frosted off and they just look like a brown plant right now. I think that we can’t underestimate the influence of what we had with some freezing temperatures.”
As for replant decisions, Miller believes you should worry about getting the first crop in the ground first before you worry about replant.
“Are there going to be some low pockets from the heavy rain for corn? Probably so. We’re going to have to fill in. The soybean crusting, if they break the hypcotyls we’re going to have to be cognizant of that too. But let’s focus on the first crop first, and then we’ll circle around and take care of the replant as it becomes more evident.”