By DOUG SCHMITZ
Iowa Correspondent

WEST DES MOINES, Iowa — When Dave Coppess looked out his office window at a heavy snow cover a few weeks ago, he realized corn planting was less than four months away, which has made farmers – and fertilizer retailers like Coppess – think ahead to spring planting season.

“It certainly appears we could have a major time crunch getting the 2010 crop into the ground – fed and protected,” said Coppess, executive vice president of sales and marketing at Heartland Co-op, a major fertilizer retailer in West Des Moines. “Hybrids are hardier and seem to allow for an earlier planting date.”

With about 2 percent of Iowa’s crops still in the fields from last fall, in what was the latest harvest in several decades, many farmers were prevented several times from combining or applying fall fertilizer, which will likely impact prices and supply by spring.
“There was material applied, but not as much as normal,” said Virgil Schmitt, Iowa State University extension field agronomist in Muscatine, “so there will be a need to apply fertilizer to a larger number of acres in the spring than is usual.”

Last fall’s harvest was delayed by several unseasonable bouts of snow and rain that severely stalled combining, as well as fertilizer application; to date, western Iowa only has about 70 percent of the usual fall ammonia (NH3) applied.

“Much tillage and fertilizer application that would normally have been done in the fall will either need to be done in the spring, or people will need to change their management strategies for tillage and/or fertilization,” Schmitt added.

According to Clarke McGrath, ISU extension field agronomist in Harlan and partner program manager for the Iowa Corn and Soybean Initiative, farmers were looking for a bigger fall/winter spread season for several reasons.

“Dry fertilizer applications (phosphorous and potassium, or P&K) were down 40-50 percent last year due to sky-high prices,” he said. “(Growers) wanted to get caught up because this year prices are closer to what (they) paid in the mid-2000s, and many growers have taken off a couple good crops and need to replace the fertility.”

As a result, McGrath added that some growers may even wait until this fall to catch up on P&K applications, rather than risk packing the ground if it’s wet in the spring.

In the meantime, fertilizer retailers are already feeling the weight of the looming spring planting season – especially since it’s difficult enough to move the typical spring tonnage of nitrogen, said McGrath, a former fertilizer dealer.

“Now we have to add the fall nitrogen we didn’t get on to the ‘to do’ list,” he said. “If the weather cooperates, we can do it.