While drivers warm up in Indianapolis, we’ve had our own little Indy 500 in northern Indiana! By the end of today, we hope to be done with planting 2026 corn and soybean crops. The planting window this year was later and tightly compressed – 14 days, and only 9 of them were working days.
The first seeds we planted are barely emerging, and yet we’re finishing up. We prefer the years when we get a “trial-run” in first, but the calendar didn’t allow for that this year. We hope the time spent in the shop this winter led to all the equipment working properly.
Since things started to dry out, field conditions have generally been good. We probably planted 85% of our crop into fall vertical tillage. I don’t know if you want to call that no-till or not, but it has been a different type of year for us. We tried to leave cold, wet soil underneath and plant where the ground was in the best condition.
Plans flew out the window around Day 2. In-field risk management? Nope. We stopped splitting hybrids/varieties in fields (unless it was the end of a seed box) and no longer split any planters. It was about one thing: Putting seed in the ground. Hybrids/varieties didn’t necessarily end up where we intended them. But we focused on planting our top choices so in that sense we stuck to the plan.
With the compressed window, and less frequent hybrid/variety change, that does leave a little more exposure to weather risk during pollination and grain fill. But it was May 9 when we started so we were statistically losing yield already.
But that doesn’t mean we’re out of the race. According to Bill Nielsen, the “Purdue Corn Guy,” data shows a bit of a twist on the conventional wisdom regarding planting dates and yield. Generally, it’s said Indiana fields planted between April 20 and May 10 have the highest yield opportunity – and that’s pushed a week later for up here in northern Indiana and a week earlier for farmers south of us. He says the twists come in years when the weather challenges us and years when the weather cooperates. We’ll see what happens this year.
Can’t let the weeds win
One thing we have neglected is spraying. Most of the time is has been too windy anyway, but if we get a chance, I’d really like to treat a couple fields with pre-emergence herbicides – the less expensive ones, of course.
The fall herbicide trip is starting to run out of gas, and we may see some monster-sized weeds next week in a few corn fields. I am now figuring out what changes we need to make to our crop management, and especially our weed control plans.