Today’s guest blogger is Tom Peterson, Case IH Crop Production Specialist covering northwestern Minnesota and the eastern Dakotas. Peterson grew up on a farm in east central South Dakota. The farm started as a dairy farm and transitioned to only producing corn and soybeans. Prior to joining Case IH, Peterson worked as a sales manager for a seed treatment and micronutrient fertilizer business and worked for a financial receivables company that emphasized agribusiness. Read his report and let us know how soil conditions are in your area.
Corn planting is going strong in the eastern part of the Dakotas. Most farmers have anywhere from 50 to 90 percent of their crop in the ground. Some producers have seeded small grains, including wheat, and soybean planting is just getting underway.
After a very cold, late start, the weather has improved dramatically, although cold mornings still have some frost potential. Many growers are using the Case IH True-Tandem™ 330 Turbo, finding that the soil mixing action of the veined blades does an extremely effective job of aiding in soil mixing and drying.
Up until the past few days, growers have been going full force, with no previous weather interruptions which allowed many to catch up a bit from the last start. The recent rain has given producers a breather — up to this point, it was pretty high stress just trying to get the crops planted.
In my area, there are many new Case IH Early Riser® planters in operation. Case IH Early Riser planters are designed to be agronomically correct and have multiple, patented features that result in early, even emergence. A few of my early-adapting customers are hitting the fields with the new Case IH Precision Disk 500 and 500T drills to seed small grain. At the heart of the new Precision Disk drill is a completely new row unit, designed to help achieve more even emergence and improved plant stand establishment when seeding crops like soybeans, wheat, and milo.
I am a farmer from Will County, Illinois. I am located 1 hour south of Chicago. Corn planting is 100 percent done in our area. Emergence is outstanding. Most corn is about 6 inches tall. However, there are very little beans planted. We have been out of fields since Thursday and the rain continues to fall. We have gotten over 3 inches the last few days. Also cool temps have come in. It looks like we won’t get back in fields for another 5 days. But if we look at 10 day forecast, more rain is on the way!!