Nielsen Warns of Compaction when Planting too Soon

Be patient

Bob Nielsen-PurduePatience needs to come into play again this year with cold and wet soils and infrequent planting windows across Indiana. Purdue’s Dr. Bob Nielsen says be patient so you avoid compacted fields as much as possible.

“Just have the patience to not get into those fields before they are safely dry, let’s put it that way, because of compaction issues.” he told HAT. “But one way or the other I think patience is certainly a word of the day.”

Compaction can cut into corn yields for years, but this year a compacted field can affect the magnitude and depth of the rooting of the young crop.

“If you stunt that and then get into a dryer late summer, well then you don’t have the depth of roots and you’re not able to explore as much of that soil to get moisture. That can really aggravate drought stress if it happens to develop, so anyway you look at it, it’s sort of a silent killer. It’s often hard to avoid and we all recognize that, but at the same point with this kind of start to a season that we’re experiencing now where much of the state continues to be fairly wet, I think it certainly behooves everyone to show a little bit of patience and try not to get back into these fields sooner than they should and allow those soils to dry out to a reasonable degree anyway.”

He reminds corn growers getting concerned about late planting the planting date is merely one of many factors that determines yield. He adds there really isn’t a strong historical relationship between average planting date statewide and eventual yield statewide. That’s more reason to get into the fields when they’re really ready.

Hear more from Nielsen:Dr Bob Nielsen-April planting delays

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