With the federal crop insurance earliest planting dates now behind us, many farmers and crop producers are busy planting in their fields.

For Jefferson area farmer Mike Bravard, he says he started planting corn on April 12th and is finishing up this week, and he started planting soybeans earlier this week. Paton area farmer Jonathan Marshall also started planting corn on April 12th and finished on April 23rd. He also started planting soybeans this week.

Marshall points out that the ground was harder this spring, compared to last spring to start the planting season.

“You can just tell when you pull your equipment across the ground, it burns up sweeps on the cultivators and you can just tell it pulls harder (and) some of the ground is just cludder. We need some good rain is what we need.”

Bravard adds that in the past, if temperatures are cooler in the early part of the growing season, than that may cause some crop disease and fungi to appear.

“Sudden Death Syndrome in soybeans is been probably our worst problem. A lot of that depends on conditions of when you plant beans, and shortly after when you plant them, if you get a cool (and) wet spell after they’re planted-at least in our area-we can have issues with Sudden Death (Syndrome).”

April 11th was the earliest planting date for corn and for soybeans, it was April 21st. Anything planted before those dates that dies won’t be insured by the federal government.

 

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