Warm Days Needed for Good Crop Growth
After another week of cooler than normal weather, a warm up is coming just in time. Ever since the first seeds went into the ground in April, crop development and emergence has been slow due to cool weather and to soil temperatures that hovered about that 50 degree mark.
Pioneer agronomist Brian Early says growing degree days have been lacking most of the last month, “We are definitely lacking and can use all the heat we can get. We have a lot of the crop in the ground; now we need to warm things up.”
Early said that, for the most part, planting has gone well and that, now, if we can warm things up this weekend, we should see some good progress in early drop development.
“A lot of farmers have said this year has had some of the best planting conditions they have ever had,” he stated. “The soil worked up nicely. Other than the cold we had everything going our way, a big change from last year.”
Given some of the other challenges farmers are facing including low prices, and COVID restrictions, it is nice that planting has been problem free.
“Things looked pretty bleak until planters started to roll and that took away a lot of the negativity that the low prices prompted.”