If your corn planter would do a better job in the field being hitched to a boat this week, it’s obviously too wet to plant.
However, there are times when soil conditions are less than ideal and farmers decide – because of the calendar or insurance or whatever – to move ahead with planting. What then?
In this situation, Ken Ferrie would advise doing your best to set up your planter so it can dance across the field.
“That means you carry the minimum downforce you possibly can to maintain planting depth,” says Ferrie, Farm Journal Field Agronomist. “Keep the row cleaners light, so you only move the residue.”
While some of the residue can be pushed out of the way, Ferrie says the dry soil at the ground’s surface has to stay put in order for the depth wheels to run over the top of it.
“If we stay on top of the dry soil, we can slip that seed into the wet, mucky soil down below, and then try to get that slot closed,” he explains.
Ferrie goes into detail about how to accomplish this in his video, Making The Planter Dance. See it here.
The Beauty Of Technology
“Technology is what makes planting in wet soils a viable option,” Ferrie says. “Technology can help you clean the dirt clods and root balls out of the way, while still keeping dry soil on top of the field.”
Here are four additional pointers to keep in mind, if you find yourself planting into wetter soils than you wanted to this season:
1. Don’t muddy corn into the field. Wet soils are one thing, mud is an altogether different matter. “When it comes to muddying in corn, that is always a red light,” Ferrie says “We only mud corn in for insurance purposes.”
2. Be conscious of planter weight. If you have a center-fill planter with starter fertilizer tanks, fill the hopper and tanks only partway. Keep the planter as light as possible.
3. Avoid sidewall smearing. “Sidewall smearing causes problems with seed/soil contact and root development,” Ferrie says. “It most often occurs in no-till, but it also occurs in conventional tillage if the soil is too wet for the amount of down pressure being used.”
Slicing across the furrow, you should see no seams or signs of how the seed was placed in the trench. “If cross-sectioning reveals a seam, reduce down pressure and see if it disappears,” Ferrie says.
If you can’t eliminate sidewall smearing without giving up consistent planting depth, you must make adjustments.
“With technology, you can adjust down pressure by the row and by the foot, automatically, as you cross different soil conditions,” Ferrie says. “If you don’t have the technology, adjustments will be for the whole planter and the entire field, so make your settings in the toughest area.”
4. Take care with high-speed planters. “The faster you go, the more row units want to come out of the ground, increasing the need for more down pressure.” Ferrie says. “If slowing down helps, you may only need to do it in the areas giving you trouble. But if reducing down pressure and slowing down doesn’t help, the field is too wet to plant.”
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