This week’s guest blogger is Kyle Riesberg, the Case IH crop production sales specialist who covers virtually all of Kansas (all but two Kansas Case IH dealers are in his territory). Kyle has been around planters his whole life – he grew up on a corn and soybean farm in western Iowa, and started with Case IH in January 2008 as a planter product specialist.
In eastern Kansas, probably 60 to 70 percent of the corn is planted. The “magic number” varies in this area to when guys start planting corn – in the southern part, they start planting in late March. In the northeast, the magic number is somewhere between April 5 to 10. Guys haven’t really transitioned yet to soybeans or milo though.
Guys have just started to scratch the surface on the western side of the state. A few farmers were planting corn last week, although the magic number in western Kansas is April 20. But since it’s 80 degrees this week, they’re going to run fast and furious. If you talk to 100-year olds, they’ll tell you this spring has been the warmest ground temperatures ever, which impacts both planting season AND wheat harvest being earlier than normal.
We’ve also been historically dry, and this spring we’ve had very good rainfall. In some areas, we’ve had more rain in three months than we had all last year. We’re getting back to normal moisture levels, even in the dryland areas.
In areas that got a lot of moisture in a short time, the True-Tandem® 330 Turbo has been coming in handy, drying out the top 1-2 inches so you can get back in the field sooner. Kansas hasn’t historically been a key tillage area, but people are running with the 330 Turbo because of the field finish. It leaves the best seedbed on the market. That ties directly into how well the Early Riser® planter works – together, the Turbo and the red planter work very well together.
Whether you wear red or green, I can tell you that agronomically, with a leading disk, clean trench, and two stage closing system, the red planter gives the seed what it needs to perform!
I do test plots with the De-Terminator – the experimental planter that has six row units to compare the Earlier Riser planter vs. competitors’ planters. Case IH wins on average 80 to 85 percent of the time. And in the real world, if you can win 85 percent of the time, you’re kicking butt.
Have you seen the De-Terminator planter in action? Do you know anyone who has recently switched to a red planter? Let us know!
