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A tale of two planting seasons

Northeast Nebraska farmer Greg Anderson and northcentral Iowa farmer Chris Edgington are only 270 miles apart, as the crow flies. But they’ve experienced vastly different planting seasons in 2018.

Anderson farms near Newman Grove, Nebraska.

“The crop got in wonderfully. The soil was mellow and just worked beautifully. Now we’ve had recent rains that have brought the crop up. It’s looking strong,” says Anderson.  “There’s really no disease pressure at this point. There’s no weed pressure,. The herbicides—the pre’s—are working. It’s kind of scary, but we know there’s a lot of growing season left.”

Edgington’s situation could also be described as “scary”, but in a much different way.

“I’m sitting in the planter as we’re talking. We probably have somewhere between 25 and 30 percent of corn to go in the ground yet, as of this morning—and about the same percentage on our soybeans,” Edgington says.

He says they have switched to corn hybrids under 100-day maturity, something they’ve seldom had to do in the past.

“We are still trying to plant the corn acres that we intended, although if we catch any big rain event today, that may change.”

Edgington farms near St. Ansgar, Iowa.

AUDIO: Greg Anderson

 

AUDIO: Chris Edgington