Guest blogging for us today is Russell Solomon, Case IH Regional Sales Manager for Crop Production for the Western U.S. and Western Canada. He grew up in Mississippi, where his family was involved in the seed chemical business. He started with Case IH eight years ago and has served as Regional Sales Manager for the past two years.
Read his report below and let us know if farmers are eager to plant in your area. We want to hear from you!
Farmers in Colorado and western Kansas have barely started planting. Only 10 percent of corn is planted in Colorado, but producers are going strong this week. The weather has been dry, and winter was late. They got a couple of late snowstorms in early April, which delayed the season. They’re about two to three weeks behind a normal year.
Western Kansas has about 15 percent of corn planted, but they just got hit with 4 inches of rain, which slowed things down. Some growers in that area who planted last week may need to replant because of the rain. Farmers in both Kansas and Colorado should be planting beans later this month.
Eastern Kansas is a little ahead – they’ve got about 25 percent of corn planted.
Despite the bad weather, the Case IH Early Riser® planters have been performing well. They got off to a good start and I’ve been getting good reports. This is the first year that producers have been using AccuStat, and so far, it’s received a lot of good feedback. Growers are really impressed with the data that’s been pulled.
There are a lot of farmers in this territory who use the Precision Disk™ 500 and 500T for planting wheat and cover crops. They also have been performing really well. This is the first year that producers are using the new 50- and 60-foot drills, and it has been going well so far.
With the additional emphasis on Agronomic Design, a lot of growers are now paying more attention to the Early Riser planters’ features. Farmers who experience tough conditions in Colorado when it’s dry have still been able to get their crops to emerge early, so the Early Riser planters really shine during the tough years.
The majority of our flooded ground guys are 3/4 of
The way done with many finishing be early next
week.
Our 500t planters have kicked ass,
As well as our 1230 SP
Have had trouble with 5 series new planter and
Erratic seed spaceing, large round seed seems to
Enjoy this planter the most(1235 SP)
Many of our dry land guys are 1/4-1/2 done!