USDA’s Crop Progress Report on Monday showed Indiana corn planting at 30% complete and Hoosier soybeans 35% of the way done. 10% of that corn and 11% of those soybeans have emerged.
“It’s fantastic to get the crop in the ground,” says Purdue Extension Weed Scientist Tommy Butts. “Guys are getting breaks. It’s good to get it up and going. It’s also been hard from the weed science side of things because a lot of guys outplanted their sprayers.”
Butts is a guest on the latest Purdue Crop Chat podcast from Hoosier Ag Today. Butts says the rapid planting and emergence pace means some residuals either didn’t get put out or they didn’t get out in a timely way.
“Especially down south, essentially the drought that was going on down there. All our residuals take water to get activated, so a lot of those sat there and didn’t get activated until Monday night for the first time and may have been sitting there for a couple weeks. And that whole time we had flushes of weeds coming nonstop. I’ve had pictures and some of the Extension educators tell me that because of the heat we had too, waterhemp is already here.”
In addition to waterhemp, Butts believes that these fluctuating temps could lead to rampant ragweed issues.
“We’re going to have some early posts that need to go out. We’re going to probably have to try and overlap residuals as much as possible and it may, at the end of the day, add an extra post pass. When we plant early, we typically expect an extra post pass. Well, now because of some of the challenges early on, we probably should just automatically be factoring that in.”
Butts provides more weed management tips and discusses new dicamba regulations on the Purdue Crop Chat. Watch it on our Facebook page or YouTube channel. Listen wherever you listen to podcasts.
