National Corn Crop

National Corn Crop

David Sparks Ph.D.
David Sparks Ph.D.
Corn farmers nationwide planted about one third of the corn acreage nationwide in one week last week according to USDA’s latest crop progress report. The phenomenal progress included an increase of 38% in Nebraska and Illinois, 41% more in Missouri, 45% in Minnesota and an additional 54% of the acreage in Iowa.

Martin Barbre, Chairman of the National Corn Growers Association, talks about the planting progress and how precision farming technology helps farmers take advantage of the weather windows when they happen quickly and makes them more sustainable as well. “We have guys on the way from 50% to 100% done. I would say the areas about 75% done. Things are really rolling good. We’ve had fantastic weather and sunshine. Great weather to plant corn and great time of the year to do it. We are seeing a little bit slower emergence, it was cool the week before last before everybody got fired up planting but the corn is now starting to pop through.” Martin told me that modern technology has had a huge impact on his corn crop. “We keep track of how our nutrients in the soil are so much better so it’s how we manage nutrients we manage the soil. There are just a lot of different things we do now the 20 years ago we could not do.”

 

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