NC State Extension Corn specialist, Dr. Ron Heiniger on the value of doing a spring soil test on corn to help resolve micronutrient issues in an economical manner. Today, Heiniger says looking at an earlier top dress of fertilizer might be in order given the recent rainy, cool weather:
“I think this is one of these years where producers want to get out early with their top dress, I really do. Get in when corn is maybe a little smaller than you’ve dealt with in the past and get that top dress on. And in some cases, where you’ve got some severe problems, mix in…well, use ammonium sulfate, that’s a good solution for sulfur deficiency. So, you get in early with that.
In some cases magnesium, you can use some K-Mag, or Epsom salts, that can be blended into a side dress. I think it’s a good opportunity here with this weather clearing up, even on smaller corn than you want to get in, to go ahead and get some side dress done early, and get over this little bump in the road a little quicker.”
The sunshine and dry weather is going to also bring out some ‘unfriendlies’ so to speak, says Heiniger:
“We are in North Carolina, so there’s always unfriendlies lurking in the side bushes and weeds, particularly we’re talking about insects and weeds. We’re certainly talking about weeds as well, there. Insects we have already seen some stink bugs, the usually overwinter in the woods and go onto wheat when the weather warms up, but wheat’s not been a predominant crop this year. So, we’re seeing some in corn already.
We’re seeing some bill bug damage in corn in organic soils already. So, certainly those insects are active, and now that they’ve got some temperature to work with, they like warm weather just like we do, and they tend to want to ramp up. So, we’re certainly going to want to be on the lookout for those guys already fighting some insect damage.”
And that’s not to mention weeds:
“You know, this corn, where we get this kind of conditions, where it’s in saturated soils, it’s growing very soil, it’s not moving very fast, unfortunately, weeds, particularly some of our aquatic weeds like that a little better, so they get a little better start. So, we’re seeing some grasses in these corn fields, and some broadleaf weeds, so we’re going to have to get on some of these while this corn is still in a position to control some of this.”
And, as Heiniger told us in the late winter, micro-managing a crop and being willing to change plans on the fly is what’s going to bring in big yields:
“These kind of conditions that we’ve had, it becomes important to manage a little tighter, getting more samples, being on the lookout earlier than you ordinarily would be, taking more time with the crop. This is really critical when we have this unusually difficult weather like we have had.