Farmers are looking at planting as their key activity over the next month, but when exactly is still the question.
Weekend rains may have put some folks on hold for awhile.
Brett Schippers is a field sales agronomist with GROWMARK. He is based in Monroe, Iowa which is southeast of Des Moines. He covers much of the state.
He talks about how to handle cover crops as farmers transition to corn planting.
“It’s absolutely paramount once we have conditions to get an applicator out in the field,” Schippers says.
“Really the issue becomes all that dry matter we’ve got above the corn crop. The sooner we can get that terminated, generally it’s good practice 10-14 days ahead of corn planting that would provide enough decaying of that dry matter. At least it won’t be growing at that point so the corn crop can hopefully emerge from that mulch.”
Soybean yields have be exceptionally good, to get them started right Schippers tells what he generally recommends.
“As we look as beans going in the ground earlier than ever generally we are going face cooler soil temperatures. Most know that soybeans require warmer germination temp that corn does,” explains Schippers.
“To reduce risk it’s good practice to apply a fungicide seed treatment as well as a insecticide. By applying those products that will help the germination most generally and really help with some of the issues can provide during the first 30 days of the soybeans life.”
