May 10 2010

Greetings,

Planting continues in fits and starts. Some people are all done with corn, some have quite a lot left. Things are starting to get drug out, esp with the next several days looking wet. The corn that is in the ground is not going anyplace too fast. As you can see what I planted the 28th of April only has a half inch sprout. I have heard of some corn that is up, and there are beans going in the ground. Ndawn is showing soil temps below 50 degrees for several days. Nothing below 39 which I read somewhere was when "bad" things happen to a corn plant when the seed takes on moisture. I think the main problem is energy depletion of the seed if we don't get some temperature pretty quick. The Flax is coming up but I am concerned where the residue is heavy. That needs some heat too. The spring wheat looks good. We were able to get that top dressed just before rain which is always nice. It has been difficult to find a decent warmer day to spray so I feel like we are getting a little behind on that. It sure was nice to have the April we had, too bad May is wasting such a good start.

It looks like the quart of Roundup and pint of 2-4D took care of the over wintering cover crop. I planted corn into the "biological" strip till of radish rows. It worked fine. The ground was pretty firm from the planter track of last year. The radishes were thick so they did not leave any big holes in the ground, in fact it was hard to see that anything was there at all. There is still some pea residue left as they were planted in-between the radish rows. We will try this again next year with a lower population of radish. I located some sorghum plates for the Kinze units we have on the planted. The soybean plates worked for getting a last minute idea done before rain but was a little heavy on the seeding rate!

Good luck with planting! Remember, the best sweet corns in my survey are Polka, Honey Select, and Xtra-Tender 277A. Honey Select does not need isolation for full sweetness so that would be best to plant if isolation is not possible. Polka is early maturing so if you are planting early or late, cross pollination will not be a problem. I have had good luck planting as late as first week in July.

Have a good week.

Kelly Cooper- farm manager