By Sam Ingram
It has become somewhat dry and producers have finally made progress toward planting the 2015 crop. Not a lot of corn will go in the ground this year in Effingham County but for those that did last week provided enough dry weather to plant. The stand pictured below was planted 4/9/2015, and the pictures were taken on 4/14/15.
With adequate moisture and the recommended starter fertilizer, this corn is off to a great start. We always want uniform germination and spacing to ensure higher yields. This stand was planted as a twin-row planting with a 36 inch row planter. I pulled up a seedling, as pictured below, and we can see that in just 5 days the corn is developing a nice root system. I would attribute the moisture and “pop-up” fertilizer which consists of a 10-34-0 banded along side of the seed.
This field is mostly weed free currently, but we will begin with a herbicide program soon. UGA Extension Weed Scientist, Dr. Eric Prostko likes to have our post emergent application done before V5. This is because these are the weeds more competing with corn growth. We certainly do not want to go past V7 since research indicates a loss of corn yield. These plants are still in the VE stage and we still have some time to apply the first post emergent herbicide.