CNS Canada –– The dry bias to this year’s spring, along with recent warm temperatures, leads one Manitoba agronomist to conclude corn will soon be going into the ground.
“By the last week in April… unless some weather shift happens,” said Morgan Cott, agronomist for the Manitoba Corn Growers Association.
Excess moisture shortened last year’s season significantly and made it tough for many producers to realize top yields, she said.
However, the moisture left over from last season should help the corn deal with any problems of excess dryness this spring, she added.
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“We can also probably bet on some rains in May since we don’t usually miss them. At this stage of the game I expect planting’s going to start in the next two or three weeks.”
The two things which might disrupt that are excess moisture and cool weather. Cott said soil temperature needs to get above +5 C for corn plants to start developing.
Pests don’t appear to be a major concern right now — with the possible exception of cutworms, she said. “They seem a little bit worse every year.”
Manitoba farmers seeded 260,000 acres of corn in 2014, and Cott said she expects those numbers to stay relatively the same for this season.
“Prices aren’t changing a great big deal, so I don’t know if that’s going to encourage acres.”
— Dave Sims writes for Commodity News Service Canada, a Winnipeg company specializing in grain and commodity market reporting.
