By Darren Hefty

By Darren Hefty

Planting early normally leads to higher yields, but how early is too early?

Brian and I talk about early planting all the time, and Brian goes so far as to talk about how corn has been shown in university research to germinate in soils as cool as 41 degrees Fahrenheit.  Please don’t misunderstand, we wish it would be warmer in the north at planting time.  However, that just doesn’t happen very often, if ever, since frost has to come up out of the ground following winter.

This all leads to the 2 Non-Negotiable’s of Early Planting.

CROP INSURANCE EARLY PLANTING DATES

Crop insurance companies often release maps like the one to the left to help farmers know the early planting date for coverage in their part of the country.
This map is but one example. Always verify with your agency for the correct dates for your company and your area.
THE FIRST NON-NEGOTIABLE: NEVER PLANT BEFORE THE FIRST CROP INSURANCE DATE.

Let’s face it – you can’t argue with someone who has ALL the data. Crop insurance companies have everyone’s data regarding how early is too early to take a chance planting. I’m siding with them. If they won’t take the financial risk insuring your crop because it’s too early, I’m certainly not going to advise planting.

The best part about this rule is that you can go out in your field and plant a small (emphasis on SMALL) amount of your crop before the crop insurance date and test this theory out for yourself. I’d suggest doing this for 10 years before considering this rule null and void for your farm. That’s the thing with early planting; it can occasionally work just fine to ignore this rule, but if you do so in the long run you’re eventually going to get burned.

THE SECOND NON-NEGOTIABLE: SOIL CONDITIONS MUST BE FIT FOR PLANTING.

Don’t mud in a crop. We’ve all heard its before, and 95% of us have done it anyway. When it’s June 25 and mudding in the crop is your only option to get a crop in at all, sometimes you’ve got to do it. However, mudding the crop in April 1 when the crop insurance (safe) date to plant your corn is April 10? Well, that’s a mistake. If April 10 is your date and your soils are fit, it’s pretty hard to argue against planting.

5 MORE WAYS TO MAKE EARLY PLANTING PAY
  1. Run a saturated cold germ test on your seed corn. Plant the highest scoring seed first.
  2. Use a GREAT seed treatment like Hefty Complete (more than 30 components).
  3. Use a low-salt in-furrow pop-up fertilizer. (We use Pro-Germinator and Sure-K.)
  4. Use in-furrow insecticide like Capture LFR.
  5. Use in-furrow fungicide like Xanthion (Headline + a bio-fungicide).