As we start to get to this part of the year, we start looking towards spring. The groundhog in our area predicted an early spring and with today being 60 degrees it definitely feels like it will be. Thoughts of spring bring thoughts of planting. The last few weeks we talked about getting the planter ready and picking the correct hybrid. This week I would like to touch on planting date.
Both Precision Planting’s PTI farm and Beck’s Practical Farm Research (PFR) have done studies on the importance of planting date when it comes to yield in both corn and soybeans. Becks has conducted a 25-year multi-location study of planting dates for corn and a 28-year multi-location study of planting dates for soybeans.
In their research on planting dates, they concluded the optimum date to plant corn and soybeans falls between April 16 – 30. Over the 25 years of the corn study, their research showed that the planting window of April 16-30 resulted in yield that was 107% of the mean of all the planting dates with May 1 – 15 following closely at 105%. In the 28 years of the soybean study, they showed similar results; the planting window of April 16 – 30 produced a yield of 106% of the mean. The interesting thing about the soybean study is the next best window was April 1 – 15 yielding 105% of the mean followed closely by May 1 – 15 at 104%
Obviously, these planting windows are all dependent on the weather. If we have a wet and cold spring, planting dates tend to get pushed out later. This also doesn’t take into account individual farm locations and soil types. Those are all things we need to think through as we plan our planting dates, for us that means we get good at switching the planter back and forth from corn to beans and planting as early as we can as the individual fields are ready to plant. Every year we try to start early with our beans and would like to finish them up before moving on to corn, but it does not seem to work that way most years. Here’s hoping and praying this year works out that way.
#plant26 #plantearly #plantingdate
