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Shift to earlier planted soybeans becoming more pronounced

The shift toward farmers planting soybeans earlier is becoming more pronounced.

USDA’s latest weekly crop progress report showed nationwide the pace of bean planting is 20 percentage points ahead of the five-year average at 42 percent.

Stine Seed agronomist Bill Kessinger tells Brownfield it’s a reflection of a change in attitude about soybeans.

“Growers are wanting to hit high yields in soybeans, it’s not a rotational crop anymore and growers aren’t just throwing beans out there to see what they’re going to do. They’re actually starting to take care of these soybeans, starting to make sure they’re fertilized correctly, they’re putting fungicides (and) biologicals on them.”

American Soybean Association chair Bill Gordon, who farms in southwest Minnesota, says there’s a lot of data that backs up planting soybeans early.

“As long as the weather and the ground conditions are correct, (you’ll) create that nodulation and that early budding and get that flowering back when it’s a little cooler and keep those flowers from aborting. So it increases that yield.”

Gordon and Kessinger both partially attribute the increasing confidence in early planted soybeans to a stronger arsenal of crop protection products like seed treatments that protect the seedling against cold soils and moisture.

Bill Kessinger interview:

Bill Gordon interview: