Ontario Agriculture

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Corn is in the ground!

My corn is planted and on its way up!  It was none too warm on the weekend while I sat on my open air tractor planting two fields of corn.  The cold rain on Monday gave me a bit to worry about, daytime highs of 13C are not particularly desirable, but the heat has shown up and the corn seed has noticed.  Only5 days in the ground and I have an up shoot. The forecast has some reasonable temperatures called for, so I hope to see it out of the ground by the end of next week.

I have been told, if it doesn't rain after you plant, that seed will look shallower every time you check, get a rain and you won't believe how deep it is.  After planting, I got a good 6 tenths.  I looks a good inch deeper than the day I put it in the ground.  I just about quit digging down when I found that little seed with a good inch of root and a small nub of an up shoot.  The ground is cracking nicely so I don't expect any issue with a crust stopping emersion, but there is a lot more rain in the forecast before that happens.

Planting didn't go particularly smooth.  I am pretty sure I didn't miss planting any rows, although I had to replant one when one of four row ran out of seed early.   Had a chain jump off the drive for the fertilizer, resulting in a second repeat run, but other than that I did my part well.  The fertilizer however, was in a hurry to get in the ground.  It was running a good 60% faster than the chart.  I believe I have one round with close to 400 lbs on it.  But I was thinking clear enough to mark my adjustments with a flag, so i should be able to get some good trial data from the extra 2 tonnes I had to buy.  

I am going to try a bit of non-roundup ready corn, to see how it yields and how weed control compares to the roundup ready variety.  The seed supplier was very concerned about selling me non-RR corn, concerned I would spray it the same way.  Never been a problem using different herbicides between corn and Soybeans, don't see why this was such a concern, other than someone has clearly forgot about the different varieties in the past.  My two fields are separated by a road, so I am not too concerned...until I completely loose my mind.

Next step is the herbicide, I haven't finalized what to use, but likely will take advantage of the next calm dry day to make something happen.  I have a week after all why rush the decision.  Not in any rush to plant the soybeans yet, but I am sure I will get the itch soon enough.

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Comment by Roadrunner on May 17, 2012 at 1:22am

Good work Gus.

I hope your crops do well.

RR

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