Indiana Wheat Planting Behind Schedule

Winter wheat planting in Indiana is lagging behind. In Monday’s USDA report, 48% of wheat was planted compared to the five-year average pace of 57%. Last year at this time, 66% of Indiana wheat had already been planted.

Agronomist Brian Shrader covers East Central Indiana for Pioneer and says, “I’d say probably only about 2/3 of what we had planned are in the field. I know other parts of the state are experiencing a very similar situation as well. So, we are trying to do some things. We can still plant wheat. We still have some time to do it, but there are some agronomic considerations that we do need to think about as we move into late October and into November when we go to plant our wheat.”

Shrader shares two of those agronomic considerations for planting wheat this late.

“One, as we get later, we certainly need to increase our population on our wheat stand. We are probably very close at this point as we move into November to probably 2 million seeds per acre. That is going to be a good number to look at for those acres that we’ve got yet to go into the ground. I think the other thing that will be important to keep in mind, especially for the guys that are planning to no-till, is we want that seed to be somewhere an inch to an inch and a half in depth. I know the temptation will be to want to lay it right on the ground because it’s so muddy, but what we find is that when we shallow up our planning depth, we open ourselves up to winter heaving.”

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