Corn Planted and Up In Five Days

Corn is Up!

Trent Brandenburg is happy to see green rows of little corn seedlings in fields he planted just four or five days ago. “You hope everything is all right, then when you see the emergence you know it’s OK,” Trent noted with a smile. Trent estimates he has about a day and a half of corn planting left. He expects to complete all his corn and soybean planting in five or six days, depending on the weather. Trent’s up-to-date GPS-equipped machinery helps him to use the weather-determined planting windows most efficiently.

Corn planting took longer than Trent wanted, because he had to move from field to field to plant the drier ground first. He estimates that 95% of the ground he planted was in “pretty good” tillage condition for planting and 5% was too muddy. He planted the muddy ground anyway due to the late planting season this year. “If it’s 95% ready you need to get it planted,” Trent concluded.

Trent joined many farmers to set a new national record for fast corn planting. According to Reuters, farmers planted a single-week U.S. record of 41.8 million corn acres as of Sunday, topping the previous record of 34.1 million acres set in June 1992. This year’s total corn acreage nationally is the largest since the 1930s. The Illinois Department of Agriculture reports that the Illinois planting speed record was also broken, with 57% of the Illinois corn crop planted during the past week.