Wait For Better Conditions Before Heading Out On Wet Soils

May 30, 2016

By Paul Jasa

With the recent rains and the wet soils, many producers may be tempted to head to the field sooner than they should. Wet soils are easily compacted when tilled or driven on as the soil particles are lubricated and “slide” easily under the weight of the implement and/or tires. Sidewall compaction during planting can be a problem in wet soils, especially if the crop is "mudded in" and a dry spell occurs after planting. Patience is required to wait for the soil to dry, but if the next rain is coming or the yield penalty for late planting is growing, it's hard to wait.

How wet is too wet? If you are putting a log chain or a tow strap in your tractor cab to pull you out when you get stuck, even you know it’s too wet. Make a quick check of soil moisture conditions by taking a handful of soil from planting depth (or tillage depth if planning on doing tillage) and press it in your hands to make a mud ball. If wet soil sticks to your hand, it’s probably too wet. Drop the mud ball to the ground from waist high. If the mud ball doesn’t break apart when it hits the soil surface, it’s probably too wet.

Even with no-till, waiting a day or two for the soil to dry out some will provide better soil conditions for stand establishment. Mudding the crop in often results in some seed-vee smearing, sidewall compaction, and/or over packing of the seed. The resulting uneven emergence and poorer stands often reduces yields more than the slight reduction in yield from planting later. There is still time to get the crops planted without major yield penalties from late planting, especially for soybeans or grain sorghum.

Tractor tilling in wet woil

Figure 1. Don’t till wet soils to dry them out. Tilling or driving on wet soils causes compaction.

Depending on how fast the rain came and how little residue was on the soil surface, a crust may have formed and some may want to till the field to break up the crust. This should be avoided as the soil may be too wet to do tillage. The soil will be able to support the weight of a planter well before it is dry enough to be tilled. Producers will be better off to simply plant the crop through the crust. The seedlings will come up through the slot that the planter cut into the soil when placing the seeds. By not tilling the soil and by not running residue movers, there will be more residue on the soil surface to reduce crusting problems, another advantage to no-till.

Source: unl.edu

Video: Why Your Food Future Could be Trapped in a Seed Morgue

In a world of PowerPoint overload, Rex Bernardo stands out. No bullet points. No charts. No jargon. Just stories and photographs. At this year’s National Association for Plant Breeding conference on the Big Island of Hawaii, he stood before a room of peers — all experts in the science of seeds — and did something radical: he showed them images. He told them stories. And he asked them to remember not what they saw, but how they felt.

Bernardo, recipient of the 2025 Lifetime Achievement Award, has spent his career searching for the genetic treasures tucked inside what plant breeders call exotic germplasm — ancient, often wild genetic lines that hold secrets to resilience, taste, and traits we've forgotten to value.

But Bernardo didn’t always think this way.

“I worked in private industry for nearly a decade,” he recalls. “I remember one breeder saying, ‘We’re making new hybrids, but they’re basically the same genetics.’ That stuck with me. Where is the new diversity going to come from?”

For Bernardo, part of the answer lies in the world’s gene banks — vast vaults of seed samples collected from every corner of the globe. Yet, he says, many of these vaults have quietly become “seed morgues.” “Something goes in, but it never comes out,” he explains. “We need to start treating these collections like living investments, not museums of dead potential.”

That potential — and the barriers to unlocking it — are deeply personal for Bernardo. He’s wrestled with international policies that prevent access to valuable lines (like North Korean corn) and with the slow, painstaking science of transferring useful traits from wild relatives into elite lines that farmers can actually grow. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t. But he’s convinced that success starts not in the lab, but in the way we communicate.

“The fact sheet model isn’t cutting it anymore,” he says. “We hand out a paper about a new variety and think that’s enough. But stories? Plants you can see and touch? That’s what stays with people.”

Bernardo practices what he preaches. At the University of Minnesota, he helped launch a student-led breeding program that’s working to adapt leafy African vegetables for the Twin Cities’ African diaspora. The goal? Culturally relevant crops that mature in Minnesota’s shorter growing season — and can be regrown year after year.

“That’s real impact,” he says. “Helping people grow food that’s meaningful to them, not just what's commercially viable.”

He’s also brewed plant breeding into something more relatable — literally. Coffee and beer have become unexpected tools in his mission to make science accessible. His undergraduate course on coffee, for instance, connects the dots between genetics, geography, and culture. “Everyone drinks coffee,” he says. “It’s a conversation starter. It’s a gateway into plant science.”