By KEVIN WALKER
Michigan Correspondent

SALINE, Mich. — The weather has been cool enough that some soybean producers are seeing emergence problems, and some may even have to replant this year.

“It’s a very hit-or-miss type of thing, but when you have a problem, it can mean a replant decision,” said Mike Staton, Michigan State University extension educator and Soybean 2010 coordinator.
Staton, who is located in Van Buren County, said the only evidence he has in the field is that there are emergence problems, but he said what he is seeing is basically normal.

He’s afraid, though, that the seeds aren’t as good as they should be because of green stem disorder.

“The plant stayed green longer than it should have (last year),” he said. “That delayed harvest, and then the seed becomes too dry, and that increases the likelihood of damage to seed coats or the actual embryo. Also, it’s been cool in Michigan this year, and germination has been delayed a little bit.”

Seven percent of the soybeans had emerged as of May 18. The week before it was two percent. The five-year average at about the same time is 10 percent, according to Vince Matthews, deputy director of the Michigan Office of the National Agricultural Statistics Service.

“We’re just starting to see emergence,” Matthews said. “(Temperatures) have been cool this year. This has slowed emergence a little bit, but this would have to go on quite a while longer for there to be any real problem.”

Kelvin Braun, a corn and soybean grower in southeastern lower Michigan, was quite a bit more negative.

“The ground is like concrete,” he said last week. “We might have to replant next week. I hope we don’t have to.”

Braun said the corn came up fine, though it too looks a little yellow from the cold. “It needs warm weather, too,” he said.
He said he would make a decision sometime during the last week of May whether to replant. He is waiting for rain to come and soften up the soil.

If he does replant he will drill in on an angle with a no-till drill to minimize the damage to the plants that may yet emerge. The most recent weekly crop report was good for the week ending May 18.

“Across the state, cool soils hindered germination and emergence of planted crops,” it stated.

“Corn planting was wrapping up while early planted fields emerged. Soybeans were being planted and some were just beginning to emerge.”

The report quotes a farmer from the northern Lower Peninsula on about May 15: “Still very cold nights with frost almost every morning, warming late in the day.”

A week later, Braun said it was still unseasonably cool.
“In the morning it feels like October,” he said. “It’s strange when you have to wear a jacket in the morning.”