What a spring it has been! The heavy rain that fell at the beginning of April when I last posted was certainly not the last we have seen. We were able to start planting corn in a timely fashion on April 13th as the first fields dried out. All of the corn planting and corn pre-spraying were completed over then next week and a half. We were even able to get a few beans planted and sprayed. But then the rain started back up and temps dropped drastically. The last weekend in April gave us about 4″ of rain, followed by a week of cold temps. This brought on a lot of crop scouting and rotary hoeing to try to get good stands of corn established. We were able to finish up planting beans on May 15th. We followed with the sprayer right behind the planter, often even in the same field, to ensure we covered the bean ground with a layer of residual herbicide. We then circled back around and replanted areas of a few fields of corn and a couple of beans. Now, after some more showers and cooler temps, were are again looking forward to some warm, dry weather to help the last round of planting and replant get well established. Corn spraying will begin when things dry off a bit more as well. While stands are thinner in places and the crop doesn’t seem to be off to the start in has had the past couple of years, we are thankful that things look as good as they do. Many areas of the eastern corn belt have been fighting even worse rains and larger replantings. As you can see below, the spring sure wore out some of the “help!”

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