The weather finally turned after our last web update over a month ago. We have been BUSY! We finished planting corn on the 17th of May. All the beans were in the ground as of May 31st, but the majority were planted from mid-April to mid-May.
It was all hands on deck. At one point we were planting corn, planting beans, spraying pre-plant herbicides and nitrogen, and trying to keep a rotary hoe running. Debbie came to the rescue and ran the hoe while Rod and I tried to keep the planters and sprayer moving. We hoed all the April and early May planted beans and the all the corn that we planted on the first day. That, along with some timely precipitation, helped get both crops emerged out of the ground. The only replanting we have done has been 6 acres of soybeans that were first planted the second week of May.
As soon as the corn planting was complete, we started scouting fields for emergence issues and insects. We found cutworms and their damage on a few fields that had been cover cropped or no-tilled. We ended up spraying just under 400 acres of insecticide for cutworm control. Pre-Sidedress Soil Nitrate samples have been pulled on all the corn fields and the results came back very strong. The delayed application of our pre-plant nitrogen and the lack of heavy precipitation so far has favored us. Losses of nitrogen to leaching or denitrification have been nonexistent to this point. With nitrogen prices more than double what they were a year ago, we are very happy with the test results.
Post herbicide application on the corn is complete and we have over one third of the post soybean herbicides applied. This past weekend we ran two sprayers and covered 1890 acres. Monday we started sidedressing nitrogen on the corn and as of last night we are almost 30% done.
This morning we were getting a little rain but as of mid-day we have only got 0.03”. The crops look good and our progress has been fast. It would be nice to see a half inch or so of rain, but beggars can’t be choosers!
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