A producer from Texas already has some corn up
The 2025 growing season has started for some U.S. farmers.
In Texas, for example, Colin Chopelas, who grows corn, sorghum and cotton on about 5,000 acres north of Corpus Christi in Nueces County, started planting his corn in the first part of February.
“That was about the only moisture we had to get the crop up,” he told Farms.com. “We got a pretty good stand on the first stuff we planted.”
He planted mainly Pioneer and DeKalb hybrids this year.
The hybrids he chose underscore the challenges that come along with farming, he said.
“Obviously we went into the year hoping to have high yields, but it’s clear a more drought tolerant or shorter season variety may have been a better option. You make so much of your decisions and spending a majority of your money before you put a seed in the ground.”
After planting some corn, Texas went dry.
As of March 28, 100 percent of Nueces County is experiencing either severe or extreme drought, U.S. data shows.
Only recently did Chopelas’s crop get a good rain.
“We’ve gotten about four inches of rain over the last couple of days, but before that we didn’t see any rain since September of last year,” he said.
In between his first found of planting and these latest rains, Chopelas planted his remaining corn crop into dry ground to be in line with the March 31 deadline for crop insurance purposes.
And his early corn is showing signs of stress due to hot days and high winds.
“We’ve had multiple days over 100 degrees, and the crop never established brace roots,” he said. “It’s hurting pretty bad and is leaned over. I don’t think we were quite in the reproductive stage yet but there’s going to be some yield loss, no doubt about it.”
But Chopelas is confident his early corn will fare better than the later corn because he planted it into some moisture.
This likely means he’ll have an uneven crop.
“Our year is going to be very spread out,” he said. “We’ll have some corn coming off in late June and some towards the end of July before it’s ready. It’s going to be all over the map this year.
“I’m just hoping we get some rain so we can make a crop.”