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Experts: Spring planting will take patience and planning

By DOUG SCHMITZ
Iowa Correspondent

AMES, Iowa — Despite last fall’s unseasonable bouts of snow and heavy rain that left a historically late – and in many cases, abandoned – harvest in its wake, experts are saying the 2010 spring planting will take timing, patience and planning for a successful season.

This past winter alone had presented its own challenges, leading Iowa State University (ISU) Agricultural Meteorologist Elwynn Taylor to predict a very wet spring throughout the Midwest.

“Soil moisture levels are at or above field capacity,” Taylor said. “It will not take abnormally high amounts of April precipitation to leave large portions of the Corn Belt too wet for effective planting.
“The El Niño weather of February brought substantial moisture in a band across the southern United States,” he added. “As the weather patterns migrate north in the spring, a wet planting season is a threat.”

Iowa temperatures this winter averaged 46.7 degrees or 1.1 degrees below normal, while precipitation totaled 39.88 inches or 5.80 inches above normal, ranking this past winter as the 26th coolest and 11th wettest year among 137 years of state records.
“Cooler than normal weather was the rule for much of the year,” State Climatologist Harry Hillaker said. “As is typical, the coldest weather came in January with a brief period of bitter cold at mid-month.”

Clarke McGrath, ISU field agronomist and partner program manager at ISU’s Corn and Soybean Initiative, said the recent snowfall the state experienced makes the planting season just as unpredictable as harvest time.

“It seems no matter what the winter is like, spring is its own animal,” he said. “We saw 10-foot drifts in fields, and average snow cover of 2-3 feet a few weeks ago and thought it would never melt,” he said.

“As of March 18, it is almost all gone, so go figure. But in short order and a spring snowstorm can screw the whole works up again.”
As a result, one of biggest challenges facing farmers this planting season will be compaction, said David Wright, Iowa Soybean Assoc. (ISA) director of production research.

“Farmers did what they had to do to get crops out last fall, but there will be ramifications,” Wright said. “Heavy wagons, trucks, grain carts and combines moving across wet ground all contributed to soil compaction. There are now some things farmers need to watch for in the 2010 soybean crop.”

But Greg Brenneman, ISU Extension agricultural engineering specialist, said the heavy snow accumulation would cause even more complications this spring.

Moreover, if the water from melting snow isn’t able to percolate down through the soil, fields will be wet, even without excessive additional rainfall, which will put additional pressure on farmers to delay spring tillage to keep from further compacting the soil.
“Spring is not the time to alleviate compaction, but farmers will want to avoid creating more compaction,” Brenneman said. “With wetter soil, that is more of a challenge. I would advise farmers to not try to get out in the field very early. Doing so and working wet soil will create more compaction.”

While farmers think tillage will reduce soil compaction, Mahdi Al-Kaisi, ISU Extension agronomist, said it will actually make it worse since disturbing the upper soil layer would destroy soil’s natural structure and create another layer of compaction under heavy rain and field traffic.

John Holmes, ISU Extension field agronomist, said 2010 may be a year for farmers who work their soil to try doing less tillage.
“Put simply, the more wheels and machinery that move over wet soil, the more compaction will take place,” said John Holmes, ISU Extension field agronomist. “Avoid making any more trips than absolutely necessary across a field with wet soil.”

In fact, planted in wet fields, young soybean seedlings could have problems with root development, which may, in turn, lead to further problems, which is why, Holmes said, it’s more important that the soil is ready.

“I’d encourage farmers to plant seed with excellent resistance to diseases,” Holmes said. “Since the seed will likely be going in a cold, damp soil, it would be a good idea to treat it with a fungicide.”
For Indiana farmers who experienced white mold and ear rot in 2009, Kiersten Wise, Purdue University plant pathologist, said there are measures they can take to reduce the chances of a repeat in 2010.

“This year with corn, the big story was ear rot at the end of the season,” Wise said. “The most prevalent were Gibberella, Diplodia and Fusarium ear rots. Some of these ear rots cause major issues with grain quality because the fungi that cause them produce mycotoxins, or compounds toxic to both humans and livestock.”

In soybeans, Wise said the biggest issue was white mold, which was a problem during the growing season, and this year, it’s already caused significant yield losses in certain areas of Indiana.

Last December, farmers in Kentucky were already getting prepared for this year’s planting season through workshops on twin row corn and early planted soybeans, pigweed and volunteer corn, foliar fungicides, stacked traits, grain drying and storage, as well as  marketing grain and budgeting.

In the end, being patient during the 2010 planting season will eventually pay off, Al-Kaisi said.

“Farmers need to know their own soil and their fields.”

 

3/30/2010