Holman on spring 2013 planting delays
Planting delays for Indiana farmers have been extended even further this week with more rain. Now they’ll patiently wait to see if forecasts for warmer and dryer conditions materialize. But these delays haven’t yet thrust the state into the late planted category, which as Asgrow-DEKALB technical agronomist Jason Holman explains won’t be the only yield determining factor this year.
“Typically we want to look at a window between April 20th and May 10th. After that you will see a little bit of fluctuation in yield but planting date doesn’t have everything to do with yield variability, and I think that’s important to keep in mind. If you try to mud in seed, especially in colder soil conditions, lower than 50 degrees in corn and 54 degrees in soybeans, you run the risk of a seed staying dormant underground and really putting it more at risk for early seedling diseases like Fusarium and Pythiam.”
You can add an additional week to the May 10th date for northern Indiana and subtract a week for the south. Holman says the best defense against those diseases is seed treatments.
“You won’t find a lot of things you can do. You can’t really spray or inject anything but your seed treatment products do provide a level of protection that nothing else can. So if you have treated seed you’re going to be a lot better protected than if you don’t. If you don’t have treated seed I would advise waiting until your soil conditions are more perfect so you don’t run that risk. The other things are drainage, rotation. You’ve got a host crop that will hold certain diseases and soybeans are a lot more sensitive to these pathogens than corn.”
Holman’s territory is the northern half of Indiana. From what he’s seen it’s still going to be awhile before a lot of planters are rolling.
“I would like to say we could still get in around the end of the first week of May, but that’s all going to depend on the weather and what it does. The guys that do have tile in their fields will have a little bit of an advantage. We’re still in kind of a good spot if you look at a five year average on planting dates. So we’re kind of in the sweet spot of where we need to be.”
In the full HAT interview Holman talks more about those diseases, plus weed pressure and control, the Asgrow 4P System for soybeans and some last minute machine tune up ideas:Jason Holman on spring 2013