With the weather being uncooperative so far, chasing fit soils instead of a calendar date has been a consistent theme from agronomists this spring. Purdue Extension Corn Specialist Dan Quinn continued with that message on the latest Purdue Crop Chat podcast found now at hoosieragtoday.com.
“Just because it gets in late doesn’t mean you’re going to lose a lot of yield,” Quinn reiterated. “There are just so many factors throughout the entire season they can impact yield really more so than what planting date. You often talk about, I think it’s .1% after May 1 we start losing yield, but even if you’re into mid-May to late-May, that’s just impacting yield potential. It’s not impacting actual yield.”
Soybean Specialist Shaun Casteel is a big proponent of getting beans in the ground early; however, “We’ve got a lot of time left still to yield very well. I definitely like to be in late April/early May, but this is where we’re at right now and we plant to the conditions that we’ve got.”
Casteel encourages patience for farmers who haven’t planted but also for those who do have a little bit in the ground.
“It’s going to take a while for those crops to bump up and emerge. So, a good rule of thumb on the soybean front, 140 to 160 heat units from the time of planting, you’re going to have over half of your crop emerged. So, that’s a just a good place to be. That can be three weeks at this point. If we’re looking at middle or late May, that could be two weeks or 10 days.”
We’ll check in with Quinn and Casteel every couple of weeks or so between now and harvest to provide you the most up-to-date agronomic insights on the Purdue Crop Chat podcast. Subscribe now via Podbean, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
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