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Agronomist expects planting to pick up now in Wisconsin

An agronomist says after a stretch of cool weather, he expects the planting pace to pick up starting now.  Scott Rountree with Pioneer works with farmers in southern Wisconsin. He says, “I think a lot of growers will be in the fields here Thursday, Friday, Saturday with the first big push on planting. We’ll get into a warming trend and that’s what we as agronomists generally like to recommend. Even if we’re not at soil temperature of 50, we want to be planting into a warming trend.”

Rountree tells Brownfield more farmers are planting soybeans first. “One of the things about soybeans is that it’s an indeterminate crop, so Dr. Shawn Conley at the UW (University of Wisconsin) and a lot of other field trials have shown that the earlier we can plant soybeans, the more nodes we can put on those plants and have an opportunity to set pods and higher yields.”

And, for growers concerned about planting before USDA’s (April 26^th) early planting date for crop insurance. “A lot of crop insurance agents are now offering for just a dollar an acre premium, you can bump up that first plant date from April 26th to April 12th so a lot of growers are beginning to use that here recently just to plant those soybeans first.”

As for corn, Rountree says some of his clients have put in a few acres, but most are waiting until soil temperatures come up a little more.