Palmer pigweed in Jasper County
Warmer temperatures in Indiana are being welcomed by farmers across the state and in northwest Indiana Jasper County farmer Mark Kingma says it’s also time for some additional rain. He tells HAT fields are slightly dry now but crops aren’t suffering because it has been so cool.
“Two weeks ago we had 1 to 2 inches across everything and since then just a couple hundredths to a couple of tenths,” he said. “But maturity we’re starting to see some of our 107 day corn that was planted on time that’s just starting to dent, so some of our fields are not that far behind.”
When asked if he had pest issues this summer, Palmer pigweed was the first thing out of Kingma’s mouth.
“I was told a neighbor had it a year ago but it’s the first year we’ve seen it. We were a little bit proactive by using a little more residual early. We’ve always used some residual the last several years and we started looking for it pretty early. ”
Kingma says they had planned to plant corn next year in those soybean fields since they don’t usually plant beans after beans. Experts suggest switching soybean fields with Palmer pigweed or Palmer amaranth over to corn the following year to let the corn herbicides go to work on the weed.
Depending on weather from here to harvest time, could harvest start about on time?
“Probably,” he said. “It depends on how much we want to dry. If we wait to be able to take it to an elevator or put it in a bid without drying it’s going to be later. If we start drying we’ll probably be picking, maybe a month from now, maybe the third week of September.”
Listen to the full Mark Kingma field update:Mark Kingma 8-15 update