Spring Planting Guidelines for Corn, Soybeans and Sugar Beets in Minnesota
Good day and welcome to the University of Minnesota podcast, University of Minnesota CropCast. I'm your host Dave Nicolai along with my co host Doctor. Seth Nave, University of Minnesota Extension soybean specialist. And Seth, we're fortunately today that we have two of our coworkers joining us via long distance, but wanted to come in and talk a little bit about planting conditions, where things are at here. We're in the April.
Dave Nicolai:We have with us Doctor. Jeff Coulter, University of Minnesota Extension Corn Specialist and Doctor. Tom Peters, University of Minnesota Extension Wheat Control Specialist in sugar beets. So Seth, you want to take it away and you can get our first opportunity to give a little bit of a report here and ask some questions from our coworkers in terms of planting conditions and what people should be thinking about.
Speaker 2:Well it just occurred to me we don't have any small grains folks on the line here, so we're just gonna assume that everybody's got their spring wheat planted and we're just gonna go right into corn and soybeans here, guess. And I can see I'm on Zoom and I can see Tom smiling about this, but we'll focus on these corn, soybeans and sugar beet folks today. So I think we're really set up for really pushing hard in the South for corn and soybeans. It sounds like we talked a little bit earlier to Tom that things are a little bit slower in the Valley, but let's have a little discussion about corn and soybeans and where the sugar beets are going to fall in this year.
Dave Nicolai:You both had maybe an opportunity before we started to talk a little bit about planting progress and Jeff, we'll start with you and talk a little bit about on the corn side. You had an opportunity to venture into parts of Southern Minnesota. What did you see? Was there a little bit of corn going in the ground or how's progress moving at this point in time?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I would say probably 5% of the corn's in the ground. You know, it was started on Friday and a little bit going on Friday and then by Sunday there was quite a bit more in the ground. Soil conditions look very good. It looks like it's kind of drier than normal for this time of year. So I guess that's generally a good thing when it comes to planting and getting the crop in the ground.
Dave Nicolai:I should mention we're recording this on April 15 tax day here, Jeff. So momentous day, but still good progress. Some years it's not like that.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So it seems like this is just one of those years where, you know, the soil conditions are ready a little earlier than normal. And, you know, fortunately we've had some nice weather lately, although it's cooled down a little bit, but it looks like we're going to kind of have a, you know, a little bit of a roller coaster in temperature, but, for the most part, pretty nice, spring weather conditions.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Jeff and I, I think share some agreement here in both corn and soybeans that we both really push this question about planting when soil conditions are good. And I know Tom feels the same way on sugar beets. But Jeff, what do you think about, you know, the April 15 and good soil conditions? What do you what's your recommendation for farmers and planting corn?
Speaker 3:Yeah, based on the soil conditions is what I would suggest, and it looks like it's in a lot of cases has been good soil conditions since last Friday. So, those who have been able to get some field work done and planting, I think that corn will do just fine. I don't think that early planted corn is going to do better than corn planted, say next week, But, you know, I think we're at the early part of the planting window here and, I think we can kind of just move forward as conditions allow.
Speaker 2:Well, I think you're tapped into my really strong feeling on this whole debate about planting date corn and soybeans and whether you should plant corn or soybeans on these early ish dates. And the issue for me is really around risk management and planting days and when we can get the crop in rather than a focus so much on yield enhancement from early planting. There's a lot of emphasis on plant early and you can maximize your yields. I really, really think that when we're talking about this kind of April timeframe, we're talking about taking advantage of good working days and get the crop going because there's no real guarantee that we're gonna be, you know, late next week. By late next week, the weather could change and we may not be in the field.
Dave Nicolai:So both of you maybe want to comment at this point in time, are you worried at all about soil temperatures, which obviously could go down depending upon, you know, what happens the next week and a half, but would you say with some of this larger machinery and so forth, these folks have an opportunity not to be dissuaded, so to speak, because of that situation? Or are we beyond the peak where we should just go?
Speaker 3:Well, yeah, I think we're kind of beyond it, and we're at the point we should just go. You know, when we look at what the soil temperatures are now, they're in the upper 40s to maybe mid 40s, on where you're at. That's pretty consistent. Looks like we're going have a few warm days this week, although tonight and also Friday and Saturday night it looks like it's going to get a little cool, down towards freezing or so. But, I think you know we should have a little bit of buffer.
Speaker 3:So, you know, those cold nights will put a little bit of stress on it, but I don't think I'm too concerned about it.
Speaker 2:And we could have cold weather, you know, two weeks from now out beyond the forecast. So it is possible, but I think, my feeling on this is it's going to take, especially on the soybean side, it's going to take a couple of weeks for these beans to come out of the ground at least. So I'm feeling fine about these things. I think it's a good time to get rolling. And on the soybean side, we can manage emergence dates a little bit by picking and choosing some of our depth a little bit.
Speaker 2:If farmers are really concerned about the date, they can put them in a little bit deeper. I'm not against that. I think we can manage plant emergence dates just a little bit by working the depth down just a little bit if farmers really feel that that's important. By putting soybeans down further, that just means that they're going to have to accumulate a few more heat units before they pop out of the ground. And if that's the way that farmers want to manage it, think they can do so.
Dave Nicolai:So Tom is on the line, Tom Peters, you want to comment about if we have a lot of these folks obviously and they're in a crop rotation situation, many people in whether it's Southern Minnesota or in the valley, you know, are growing corn and soybeans. Do you have any concerns? We know that there's still some frost in the ground, possibly in Western Minnesota, but from a sugar beet standpoint and factory demands, are things going ahead okay?
Speaker 4:So let's talk about this and let's start north and work south. So our soil temperatures are in the low 40s. We still have frost at six inches, So some of the moisture that we've received in the last week or ten days has not soaked in adequately. So we have very few places where conditions are suitable at this time for planting, and you know I can count on my hands the number of total sugar beet fields that have been planted. So we're right at the beginning of this for 2025 season.
Speaker 4:Now that stated, when soil conditions are right, I'm out there planting and I'm talking about recommending it to farmers to plant and also when we start our own research. So soil conditions, not calendar date, not soil temperature is going to dictate when we start our program. Dave to your point about moving south into the Southern Valley and into West Central Minnesota, of course it's warmer, frost layer is a little deeper, but we still don't have a lot of acres planted. We're right at the beginning of planting our 2025 crop.
Dave Nicolai:There's an opportunity I think moving back to soybeans and certainly corn for sure, our modern seed hybrids and so forth. Jeff, we have seed treatments in terms of that and fungicides and so forth. Even for both of you, even if that seed is in the ground for an extended period of time, typically within today's technology, it's safe to say that it'll maintain its viability for quite some time, even though sometimes we might be nervous about, you know, how quickly it can come up. You want to comment anything about that interaction in terms of emergence versus planting?
Speaker 3:Sure, Dave. Yeah, so it's not uncommon for corn to sit in the ground for three weeks before it comes up. If it's planted really early like this and then we get a cold snap, you know, generally it does fine. In some more extreme cases, it can sit in the ground for four weeks. It still come up and do fine.
Speaker 3:We may lose a few more plants when it sits in the ground for that long, especially in fields that are, say, fine textured soils coupled with high amounts of residue. So you know, if we get into one of those situations, you know, that would be something to keep an eye on as we're scouting and stuff. But you know, we can also think about that as we target our planting and you know which fields to consider planting first, that type of thing. And those fields that are at less risk of having emergence problems are also going to be the fields that are probably going to be ready first for planting. So I think it kind of takes care of itself in a lot of this.
Speaker 3:But yeah, we just need to be aware that, you know, the corn could sit in the ground for a while if it's planted this early.
Speaker 4:Let's pivot to sugar beets. We planted one depth, we plant at one inch and one quarter. I don't care what time the calendar date is or any of the other conditions. So that's the depth we're going to plant sugar beets and like Jeff, we are fully expecting that it's going to be two to three weeks before we get our seeds out of the ground when we're planting this time of the year, and quite frankly I'm not at all concerned about that occurring. Our seeds are coated with insecticides and fungicides and they'll be fine.
Speaker 2:I think on the soybean side, I would say that we do have a little option to manage these early planted soybeans a little bit differently than we might with the other crops. We can manage depth, we can manage populations, we can manage, in some cases, seed treatments if farmers haven't taken full delivery or if they're treating on the farm, they could manage those a little bit. So there's an opportunity to manage a little bit harder. I would say the most obvious thing that farmers can do is increase seeding rates. And that seems like a no brainer.
Speaker 2:Think if you're concerned about the weather, if you're concerned about getting a good stand, if you're concerned that it's going to be three or four weeks for the soybeans to come out, then we can just crank up the population. It costs money, but that investment is pretty well spent. I think it's a good way to think about it is it covers your areas within fields. It doesn't necessarily increase your population through the whole field, but you could probably save yourself on some of those acres that might be just a little bit thin that had tough time emerging just by increasing your seeding rate. So generally those kind of investments pay for themselves when we have uneven emergence.
Speaker 2:And so increased populations will help cover your hindsight just a little bit.
Dave Nicolai:You know the weather forecast for Thursday and into Friday is talking about some more widespread rain. That being said, let's say for example, if folks are forced obviously out of the field here for a time period, any comments or recommendations that you would have of, you know, once the rain stops, if that's the case, getting back in there on wet soils and talking about compaction, etcetera, any concerns there are things that you would recommend that people keep in mind? All three of you, Jeff, you want to start?
Speaker 3:Yeah, sure. Well, it's really important not to get in the field when it's too moist. A good general guideline is that we want that soil to crumble at an inch below the depth of tillage. And, you know, if we're getting in there when it's too wet, that's going to cause a lot of problems. Obviously, the first one is soil compaction, so we're creating a compacted zone where it's going to be more difficult for the roots to penetrate through unless we have consistent rainfall and that soil stays moist so the roots can easily grow through it.
Speaker 3:The other problem is when we're doing tillage and moist soils, we get clods and when we have clods, we don't get good seed to soil contact. And when we have clods, we end up having air pockets around the seed, and that reduces basically the speed at which moisture moves from soil into the seed, and that results in uneven emergence and inconsistency. So what we want to do is, you know, have the tillage done when soils are at the right moisture temperature or right right moisture level, not too moist, and we can avoid the clouds and we can get good seed soil contact so that all the seeds and buy moisture quickly from the soil and uniformly so that we get uniform emergence.
Dave Nicolai:Tom, any comments?
Speaker 4:Yeah, do. I have a comment. So our optimum window for planting sugar beet anywhere in the sugar beet area is from April 11 to May 10. So the last thing I want our producers to do is to plant into wet fields. We talked about this a few minutes ago that soil conditions should dictate when you plant.
Speaker 4:So first of all Dave, I'll say I hope it rains an inch Thursday and Friday. It's dry up here in the valley, but on the other side of that we're gonna wait until our conditions are right and then we'll plant our seeds once we have optimum conditions for sugar beet planting.
Speaker 2:Well, I'll just answer the same question, but in my typical reverse backwards way and just say, if we're at the beginning of the planting window, we can be more choosy about soil conditions than we are in the backside. If it's for Tom, if it's May 11, we may have to be more, know, we may want to push ahead a little bit more in terms of planting conditions. We may want to mud things in just a little bit more than we are when we're on the front side of this. There's a lot of time yet to get this crop in and farmers have the ability to plant a lot of acres per day, cover a lot of land. And so there's still a big window for them to do it.
Speaker 2:But since we have good conditions, let's get her done when we have good conditions in those areas where we do have good soil conditions.
Dave Nicolai:Any other comments from any of you in terms of just recommendations based on our soil situation in terms of, you know, I think Seth alluded to it, you know, population in the situation with that going in here to, you know, 2025. People are thinking about their input costs and so forth. But what are some things that you would recommend that they not cut back on in terms of going for that maximum economic yield? You know, it obviously is a situation where you're watching your input dollars but comments on that maybe something that might into fertility as well.
Speaker 2:Well let me jump in real quick. I would say what are we're discussing right now is exactly that it's good but you know, best management practices for getting a good crop. I mean, are management related things that don't necessarily cost a farmer anything more for the most part. And so those are the things that we need to focus on is really high and good management of that crop. That includes, you know, choosing the right day to get to the field to start planting.
Dave Nicolai:I know, Jeff, you've done a lot of numbers crunching in the past and so forth, populations and so forth. Is there any way you could like to summarize that a little bit to think about for a lot of Southern And Central Minnesota? What are some goals here? Things haven't changed, but keeping in mind, we want to go from that maximum economic yield.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so from a planting rate standpoint, 34 to 36,000 seeds per acre is optimal in most scenarios. However, one could probably safely drop down to that 34,000 range and not see any reduction in yield compared to the 36,000. So we got a little bit of flexibility there, but that's not going to really save you a lot of money. Just a few dollars per acre. Probably the best way to reduce your costs without sacrificing yield is to utilize the University of Minnesota Extension fertilizer guidelines.
Speaker 3:Those guidelines are in place based on lots of on farm and small plot trials that have been done throughout Minnesota, led by Dan Kaiser and all of the soil fertility people there and over the years and they're based on data and they're sound. In a lot of cases, they are a little bit lower than what growers are typically using, especially if they're applying based on rates of crop removal. So I think if in this economic scenario that we're in now, that's probably your best bet for, reducing costs without sacrificing yield.
Speaker 2:Jeff, I have a question. I want to jump in on this real quick, is if we have an early, you know, I don't know if this is the case quite like what we have in fall conditions when we have good fall conditions. In the fall, we tend to get more anhydrous go out, You know, we end up doing a little bit more in the fall when we have good long falls. Do you think farmers are getting more anhydrous out or putting more anhydrous on where they don't have anhydrous available to them in the spring like this that might have planned on doing a complete side dress? Or do you think the planting conditions and the timeframe, maybe that doesn't change behavior in terms of nitrogen application?
Speaker 2:Do you have any thoughts on that?
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, that's a complex question, Seth, but I'll try to summarize the best I can. I saw a few anhydrous tanks out over the weekend, in Southern Minnesota. You know, I think a lot of it is dependent on, you know, what are the co ops in the area and how are they set up? But you know, now is a good time to, you know, get that ammonia on if you're in an area that has that available, especially when it's, you know, we're at the very early planting time like now where, you know, we got time. So, yeah, now is a great time to use anhydrous ammonia, and there can be a lot of advantages to spring applied anhydrous ammonia compared to, spring applied urea.
Speaker 3:So, for example, last year at the Southern Research and Outreach Center at Waseca, I had a couple of different field trials going on there. In one of them, we had spring applied ammonia and in the other we had spring applied urea and then we got all that rainfall early on. And, what we saw is that with the field that had the urea, that corn looked really good early on. But then with all that rain, we lost a lot of the N and the corn was showing nitrogen deficiency later. And that definitely impacted its yield.
Speaker 3:For the other field where we had the ammonia applied, the corn, was a little not as vigorous early on, but that ammonia was there and we didn't lose as much nitrogen from the rain and that we had more nitrogen available later to the crop and that crop ended up having quite a bit higher yield than the other one that had the spring applied urea. So ammonia, the bottom line is that ammonia is a very good nitrogen source if it's applied at the right time. And in terms of its release or stabilization, it can be better than spring applied urea.
Speaker 2:So maybe take advantage if farmers have a little window, if they got a couple extra days and maybe they had planned on doing some more side dressing, maybe they, if they have the option, maybe to take advantage of that and get some ammonia out. I know that's kind of maybe a niche kind of a situation, so maybe it's not worth discussing, but I was just wondering if maybe we were getting a little bit more in out than we normally would.
Dave Nicolai:A question for Tom. You know, years ago, Tom, and as you well know, I'm old enough to remember this and so forth, but when planting sugar beets and years ago we were concerned about the population and thinning, etcetera, in all different ways. But nowadays with precision planting, what's the state of the art here, to speak, on sugar beet seed cost? Are things more accurate? What types of populations, is there any savings here or is there just a prescription you need to follow?
Speaker 4:Yeah, Dave, it's a little bit different than corn and soybeans. So our growers within a few thousand kernel plant the same population per acre. So everybody is planting to get to a 200,000, excuse me a 200 plant count per 100 feet a row and that's usually planting between 123,000 seed. Everybody's doing the same thing. So everybody is fertilizing the same way.
Speaker 4:So from a cost saving standpoint, I don't see anything in this area that's going to change with our growers. What I see, what I'm really adamant about Dave is their weed management programs. I think you know what I heard during the winter meetings is we're thinking about managing input costs and one area we want to consider backing down on is our weed control programs and I will say this, if we mess up on our weed management and we have pigweed that goes to seed, that means we have to fight those weeds for five years. I don't want that to happen. I don't want to take any chances on our weed management plan.
Speaker 4:I want a plan for success and that's using programs that are going to provide good weed control, 90 waterhemp control and prevent any of those weeds from making seed that are going to affect the crops that are in the sequence.
Dave Nicolai:Great, thank you for that information. Seth, a little bit on soybeans, anything now we're planting, you know, sometimes you would think we're early here, we're the April, but nonetheless, any thoughts that you might have? Is it different, early, mid season or later in terms of plant population going out there especially if it's a full season maturity?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think we covered the population thing. Think farmers can dial up the population I think but the other thing you mentioned maturity I think that's a good one. Take advantage of early planting and plant your long Farmers should plant their longest season, our full season, most full season or longest maturity varieties they can early if they want a yield advantage from them. That's how they get something out of it. I know there's some questions about planting early maturities early, then you can spread out your harvest window, maybe you can get manure out or something like that.
Speaker 2:That's a valid point. But if you're looking at yield, we want to plant our longest early. Think of it a little like corn on the corn side as get the long ones out early. Those are the only varieties that are really going to take advantage of early planting. When we plant a shorter season variety for our region, they don't yield any better early than they do late.
Speaker 2:There's just no additional top end yield potential in those shorter lines. The only way to take advantage of a longer growing season is plant the full season varieties.
Dave Nicolai:Well, we're getting towards the end of our time here. Jeff, I'll give you the floor for a minute or two. Anything that we didn't touch on that you would like to bring on from the standpoint of corn production?
Speaker 3:I think we covered it, Dave.
Dave Nicolai:All right. Very good. Tom, I know you did mention weed control, I just want to add one other thing in here. You've talked a lot in the past about the need for PREs and sometimes we're concerned about, oh it's too dry, it's too dry, you know, should I put it or shouldn't I? Any comments just in general in terms of, you know, getting into activation, getting into soil solution on these PREs, whether or not you should hold back or continue?
Speaker 4:So that's a good question Dave. There's a couple of different ways that I think about this. So I want to start with the conditions first. We had a lot of soil that blew this winter in the valley and that's not a good thing. It breaks my heart to see ditches with soil in it.
Speaker 4:So I know that is because we're not always managing our residues correctly, maybe we're doing too much fall tillage. That stated, our herbicides don't do any good when they're on the surface if it doesn't rain and we do have the opportunity for our most important pre emergence products to incorporate them into the soil to activate those and you know it's an interesting question and we get it all winter long. Am I better to incorporate my ethafumazate or should I leave it on the surface? And my answer is how well connected are you with the guy upstairs. If you've got good interaction with him and you know that you're gonna get an inch of rain leave it on the surface because mother nature does a much better job of incorporating ethyl than I can or my growers can.
Speaker 4:Now if it doesn't rain Dave and if you don't see rain in the forecast then we need to shallow incorporate the product. We don't want to get it deeper than what our small seeded broad leaves are, so I want to lightly incorporate maybe setting our tillage equipment no deeper than two inches to get that into the soil and I want to say it again we're doing that knowing that incorporating pesticide with our field equipment isn't as good as an inch of rain from mother nature, but I'll say it again, we've got to get that product into the soil for it to control weeds. So you have to make good logical decisions.
Dave Nicolai:Seth?
Speaker 2:Yeah, let me throw out another larger philosophical issue related to weed control in a year like this is that farming is really, really complicated and farmers really do all they can to streamline their operations and do the things as they've done in the past and just adapt around those if they can. But I guess I would just throw out this idea that in a, you know, we're, I think in Southern well, everywhere in Minnesota, but I'm thinking about Southern Minnesota this year where we've got some good conditions. I think farmers are so used to being pushed so hard to get the crop planted and then get those PREs on that they're basically in a mode to just get the things sprayed whenever they possibly can. And maybe this year's a year to rethink and just reevaluate how, if there is a larger window, if we do have a bigger window for doing our farm operations this year, maybe just think, just open the box a little bit and think clearly about how they might want to manage some of these activities differently this year. Whether that's I'm thinking about that or rolling soybeans after they're planting or other things that they normally do.
Speaker 2:They normally just get them done ASAP. Maybe they just want to rethink some of the order and some of the sequences and the timeliness. Maybe we go ahead some of those farmers that get everything planted and then go back and spray. Maybe we can spray as we go, you know, something else. And I'm not proposing anything.
Speaker 2:I'm just mentioning that maybe if there is a bigger window, maybe we should take some time add some management on this to fine tune things a little.
Dave Nicolai:Very good.
Speaker 4:I want to add to that because you made a real important point, Seth. Logic would be we're going to get all of our planting done and then we're going to worry about controlling weeds. It doesn't work that way and I think we have to find a way to do both of those operations at the same time. I don't know how long it's going to take to plant our crop in 2025, but I don't think we can afford to take a chance on not getting our pre emergence herbicides on in a timely manner to give ourselves a good opportunity for weed control.
Speaker 2:Well, we're, I just look back at history and we so often are planting before rain. And I think farmers are really focused on getting that crop in the ground before rain and that's the focus. And then that weed control does come after. It just has to, and that's just how it does happen. But I think this year just might be a little bit different.
Speaker 2:But I think, Tom, you're absolutely right, is that it should be integrated into one activity. It should be one thing that weed control should be part of the planting program, it's just that it doesn't always happen to be that way and sometimes we get out of the habit of that.
Dave Nicolai:I think you're all correct. We're so centered on the biology and the germination, the emergence of our crop seed, Tom, that we sometimes forget about that same phenomenon going on with these, from the weeds and standpoint because they also take advantage of that. So you can't ignore them and say, Well they'll wait for us. Oftentimes they don't. Well, very good.
Dave Nicolai:It's a very good discussion here today. As I mentioned, we're approaching the end of our time. We'll have an opportunity to come back with more podcasts here during the growing season. So I'd like to thank again our guests, Doctor. Jeff Coulter, University of Minnesota Extension Corn Specialist and also Doctor.
Dave Nicolai:Tom Peters, University of Minnesota and North Dakota State University Extension Weed Control Specialist in Sugar Beets. And I'm Dave Nicolai, I'm here with my cohost Doctor. Seth Nave, University of Minnesota Extension soybean specialist. I'm a field crops agronomist located out of Farmington, Minnesota and I'd like to thank the audience for listening again this week to the University of Minnesota Extension podcast Minnesota CropCast. Thank you.
