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Lessons learned from the 2015 growing season

Central Indiana farmer Kyle Jackson says there were some pretty good farm management lessons that came out of the 2015 growing season.  He tells Brownfield he didn’t have any trouble getting his corn and soybeans planted this spring, but June’s excessive moisture changed everything.

He says too much rain prevented him from getting nitrogen on the corn and getting the crops sprayed for disease and pests.  “But I think what we’re going to take from it is how much the tile ditching helped us,” he says.  “We’re going to continue to work on getting more acres drained.”

After the wet June and first part of July he said things turned off hot and dry.  He says the growing season has taken its toll on the corn crop.  “We’re not really planning on the corn drying down a lot more,” he says.  “We’ve got some ears dropping already from corn borer and stalk quality is just not very good.”

Right now Jackson says he has over a third of his soybeans harvested – but plans to switch to corn soon because of the stalk quality issue.