About This Episode
Pioneer strategic account manager Adam Brinker covers southern Iowa, roughly south of Highway 30 and from Lake Panorama east to the river. Talking with Chris Barron in late May 2019, he describes an area running in pockets: about 75% of corn planted and roughly 25% of soybeans, with fields planted before Easter looking best and reaching V2. The rough window was the week after Easter, especially the 24th through the 26th, planted just before the rain and, in places, snow arrived.
Some of that corn had sat four weeks in the ground and was still pushing toward sunlight. Stands from the week before Easter came in above 30,000, while the week after Easter left mid to upper 20s on well drained ground and less where internal drainage was poor. Corn on corn fields look worst, compounded by fall tillage that never got done and spring tillage worked into a wet, cool seedbed. Replant needs are mostly along the Missouri border and into northern Missouri.
On yield, Brinker points to university replant charts rather than his own guess. An Iowa State chart puts corn planted May 25 to June 5 at about 70% of yield potential even with the stand you wanted. The reason is that later planting pushes pollination and early grain fill into the hottest, driest stretch of summer. He notes averages are not destiny, and that once soils warm, growing degree unit accumulation should bring corn out of the ground in under 10 days instead of four weeks.
“If you look at an actual replant chart put out by, say, Iowa State, they would actually say if you would get the stand that you wanted, but planted between May 25th and June 5th, you're looking at about 70% of yield potential.”
— Adam Brinker
Key Takeaways
Southern Iowa was roughly 75% planted on corn and 25% on soybeans, with more than 30 million U.S. corn acres still unplanted at the time of recording.
Pre-Easter planting gave the best crop, with stands above 30,000; the week after Easter, especially April 24 to 26, left mid to upper 20s and worse on poorly drained ground.
Corn planted May 25 to June 5 carries about 70% of yield potential on Iowa State replant charts, even with a full stand.
Corn on corn fields are the roughest, compounded by fall tillage that did not get done and spring tillage into wet soil.
Some corn had been in the ground four weeks without emerging; once soils warm, Brinker expects emergence in under 10 days.
Late planting hurts because pollination and early grain fill land in the hottest and potentially driest part of the season.
Full Transcript
Chris: Well, hello, this is Chris Barron with the Ag View Pitch. And right now we're going to have a little bit of a twist on the conversation. We want to talk a little bit about some of the agronomy things that are going on. And we've got today here, we've got Adam Brinker with us. Adam, you want to give us a little background on yourself?
Adam
Brinker: Sure. So I work for Pioneer. I'm a strategic account manager across southern Iowa. So I work roughly south of Highway 30 and then from around Lake Panorama east to the river.
Chris: So basically southeast Iowa.
Adam
Brinker: South central, southeast.
Chris: Yeah, and you're a Missouri boy, right?
Adam
Brinker: Yeah, grew up in central Missouri. The family farm's down there close to Mexico.
Chris: Gotcha, cool. Well, you know, like basically what I was telling you, Adam, you know, what we want to do is we work with a lot of growers across the entire Corn Belt, and sometimes it's nice to get a feel for a little bit of what's going on locally. Tell us just a little bit about what you're seeing in southeast Iowa to start with.
Adam
Brinker: Yeah, so It's the whole southeast Iowa is in pockets right now. So it just depends where you're looking at what you're going to find. In general, the planting dates before Easter are some of the better looking crop that's out there. We're seeing some corn up to the V2 stage. The roughest looking planting window was the biggest window we had in southeast Iowa, and that's the week after Easter. And it tends to be worse towards the end of that week. So that 24th, 25th, 26th. Right before the rain or in some cases snow came, those are the stands we're most concerned about. We're looking at 4 weeks in the ground now and some of that corn is still pushing, it hasn't given up, but that's about all we can ask of it is to last 4 weeks before it gets sunlight.
Chris: Yeah, well, and Adam, we've got a lot of growers are gonna be listening to this that unfortunately haven't even turned a wheel. So it can be a little frustrating just to hear, you know, well gee, that's too bad your corn was in the ground for 4 weeks, but We haven't turned a wheel yet. But on the other side of that, what are you seeing for emergence and stands? And you can get to that, but also to follow up with my comment, I guess, is the question of what percent do you think is done in your area? I mean, is there some pockets in your area even that are yet to be planted or what are you seeing?
Adam
Brinker: Overall, this area, everybody got to go for the most part. I'd say in general, if I had to put a number on it, 75 or so percent done planting corn and probably about 25 on beans, if I had to take a guess. There's a little replant needed in some places, but that's more down on the Missouri border and into northern Missouri. Overall, we, we lost some, a little bit of our stands out here. We don't have the perfect picket fences that we'd like to see, but we're seeing a lot of stands come out in very acceptable levels, especially for the, the earlier planted dates.
Chris: Do you see any difference in the crop rotation, or, you know, where you get corn on corn or corn on bean ground, was there some difference there with ground being wet and different conditions?
Adam
Brinker: Definitely. In my world, I don't get to see a whole lot of corn on corn overall. We're mostly rotated, but the corn on corn fields are definitely the toughest looking out there right now. And that kind of goes back to last fall. We just didn't get the tillage done in most cases either. So that kind of compounded the problem. So spring tillage on top of the wet, cool spring we had, just it's a— that's the toughest environment out there.
Chris: Okay, and then, you know, I know you've been trying to do some stand counts, but like you said, a lot of this corn has been in the ground for, you know, for a month in some cases, or 3 weeks anyway. And so as you look at emergence, I mean, it sounds like we're gonna have uneven emergence. It sounds like, you know, you've got some stand issues. Talk to me a little bit about yield reduction in terms of a percentage, because, you know, what we're gonna be talking about in another podcast here in a little bit, it's gonna, you know, on the marketing side, it's gonna be more about what's happening with the yield reduction. And so, yeah, your area got a lot planted, but we're probably gonna see some pretty big yield reduction potentially anyway because of not as good a stand. So talk to me about that for a second.
Adam
Brinker: Right, so a lot of the stands that I'm seeing planted the week before Easter, we got close to what we wanted out there. So there's a lot of stands above that 30,000 mark. As we get into that week after Easter, there's a lot of mid to upper 20s. In the more well-drained areas. And if we had poor internal drainage or some other factors going against us, there's some stuff out there that's less than that.
Chris: So I'm gonna put you on the spot. So I'm gonna say, this is what you're gonna love, but basically, you know, what a lot of people are gonna wonder on the marketing side of things is, you know, obviously we've got, you know, we're sitting here right now with 30, you know, probably by Tuesday, we're probably still gonna have 30-some million acres of corn acres not planted. Okay, so that means the balance of them are planted, but we're probably not set up for those balance of acres to really be optimal, right? So, you know, so are we, are we looking at a 5% yield reduction, a 10% yield reduction? And not just in your area, but yeah, I know, I know you talk to a lot of other people in your company and have some perspective too.
So just from the perspective side and what we try to do with, you know, with the Ag View Pitch is to bring out perspective, right, for people to kind of think about. And so I'm not going to— I'm not going to hold you to it, but what's your— what's your thought? I mean, what are we going to— what are we going to be looking at for the stuff that's in the ground as far as potential loss?
Adam
Brinker: So if you look at any replant chart that's put out there by any major university, they all say about the same thing with slightly different numbers. So how much are we going to be off on yields if they're a little bit lighter but planted early, or if, you know, maybe planted late but we get a great stand? The average numbers would all tell us that we're going to be down, in some cases fairly significantly, from where we want to be. But that's all just based off of averages. We really don't know what the rest— what Mother Nature is going to deal us for the rest of the season. So the reason that we typically see yields going down the later we get corn planted is because we typically get the most severe heat or potential drought issues that would land during the pollination period and early grain fill period of a plant if we would plant later.
So by planting earlier, for Southern Iowa, that would be that, you know, maybe starting in early April, usually we can get through some of those most critical time periods by planting earlier. Now that we're talking, heck, late May, maybe even early June, we're more prone to have those that critical stage of the corn hitting at a warmer or drier period. And that's what can take the top end off of it.
Chris: So we get this, say we get this other 30 million acres planted or all of it, but say 5 million acres, it's probably not out of the question to say we could be taking 10% off the top across the board.
Adam
Brinker: Oh, right. If you look at an actual replant chart put out by, say, Iowa State, they would actually say if you would get the stand that you wanted, but planted between May 25th and June 5th, you're looking at about 70% of yield potential. That's just based off of averages, but we never know what Mother Nature is going to deal us for the rest of the season. We could have some late planted corn do great for us yet. It might beat some of the early stuff. We just really don't know at this point, but averages would tell us we could be off fairly significantly now.
Chris: Gotcha. Well, I appreciate that, Adam. One last question for you, unless there's any questions you have for me or we want to talk a little bit more on anything that's pertinent for some perspective here. But, you know, what's the, like right now, if you had to throw out some things that guys need to be thinking about, both in the areas where nothing is planted and/or where we've got some stuff planted, you know, what's maybe the one or two biggest agronomic threats that we're facing or that we should be thinking about that maybe is not top of mind, anything?
Adam
Brinker: I don't know about agronomically right now. When we do finally dry off and get planted, we should be getting the GDUs to accumulate a lot faster, and we should get corn to pop up out of the ground in less than 10 days instead of the, the 4 weeks that we've been looking at. And that should really alleviate a lot of issues. And same with beans. I've dug a lot of corn and beans up already and actually haven't found a rotten bean myself. I know there's some out there. And, uh, by planting into a warming trend, we should alleviate a lot of issues going forward and just be able to outgrow, outpace them and outgrow some of those things that some of this crop that's been sitting there now for 4 weeks plus is still dealing with. Right.
Chris: I appreciate that. And, uh, again, this is the Ag View Pitch and we appreciate everybody listening. Um, if it's all right, Adam, we'll follow up with you again here, um, on another one if we can. Um, and we'll talk a little bit maybe about some, uh, replant and some prevent plant stuff once we get past the prevent plant dates here, um, across the board on the whole area.
Adam
Brinker: So sounds great.
Chris: All right. Appreciate it, Adam. Thanks a lot.
Adam
Brinker: And we'll, we'll see you guys soon.