Gentlemen, start your planters!  We have a little corn in the ground this week.  Rain kept most folks from planting corn extremely early, and that may turn out to be a good thing if April weather becomes as volatile as we know it can be.  Weather conditions look favorable for planting next week— with mostly dry and mild temps after this next system passes through.  We are not “too early” at this point and I hope that folks with several acres ahead of them will be able to at least start planting corn during the last week in March.  Continue reading →

Tennessee has a long enough growing season that any Early, Medium or Full relative maturity hybrid planted well into May will have enough heat units to make a corn crop.  As a group, full season hybrids tend to have more ‘southern genetics’ which includes improved tolerance to heat compared to short season hybrids and they are considered first for late planting.  However, a big negative for some producers may be the delay in harvest that comes with full hybrids compared to earlier maturity hybrids. Continue reading →

Those who aren’t dealing with floodwater are out looking at fields this afternoon to figure out how quickly we can get the planters back in the field.  This article is written for those who intend to continue planting corn to fill contracts or to attempt to stay in their planned rotations.  We have to assume some yield reduction now compared to what “might have been” but yield penalty will depend so much on our weather this summer it is difficult to predict an amount.  I do think there is benefit to planting as much corn as quickly as possible over the next week.  Some field work and experience also tells us that managing late planted corn will be slightly different compared to a March or April planted crop.   Continue reading →