Staged planting adds up to multiple corn crops

Saturday, June 4, 2011

by BETTER FARMING STAFF

Think there’s only one corn crop out there this year? Think again suggests Dave Harwood, Pioneer Hi-Bred Limited’s technical services manager.

Because of how the weather worked out this spring, there’s three different crops in the ground, says Harwood. There’s corn planted mid-to-late April; areas where farmers were able to plant “in a fairly timely way” in early-to-mid May; and planting begun late May and continuing into this month.

Within the “three crops” is variability in terms of their establishment. Harwood points out that some early corn is “moving right along” but cold, wet soils have affected other stands planted at the same time. “Growers have had some challenging decisions in some cases - whether or not a crop is sufficiently uniform to continue it or should replanting be done or selective replanting in fields and so on,” he says.

“It will be interesting to see to what extent the range of crop development stages we will have throughout the growing season influences pest pressures,” he adds.

Harwood uses the example of the Western bean cutworm. Crops whose flowering coincides with the point in an insect’s development that it begins to feed might make those corn plants “a bit more vulnerable to colonization,” he says.

This spring’s dousing also challenged growers needing to get into fields to apply pre- and post-emergent herbicides. For those who opted not to apply nitrogen before planting trying to get into fields to do side dressing could pose headaches, Harwood adds.

Despite a problematic start, however, predictions of a warmer than usual summer mean this year’s growing season could still deliver an average corn crop, he says.

Clark Aitken, a crop sales specialist with AGRIS Co-operative Ltd. in Chatham estimates about 60 to 70 per cent of the corn crop is planted in his area. “But there’s some guys that are just starting down in the Merlin area and Charing Cross . . . so they might only be at the 20 to 30 per cent level.” But work is progressing quickly he says, adding that by the end of the weekend, as much as 90 per cent of the local crop could be planted. BF