Ontario Agriculture

The network for agriculture in Ontario, Canada

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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