Initial Results, 2015 Corn Date Of Planting And Fungicide Application

Nov 17, 2015

By Russel Higgins

A sincere thank you to the men and women who have, or are, currently serving in the military on this eleventh day of the eleventh month, Veterans Day.

2015 date of planting corn

As we near mid-November harvest nears completion in Northern Illinois. Tillage operations are underway and fall anhydrous can now safely be applied when soil conditions permit; soil temperatures in northern Illinois are registering around 40 degrees. Time in the tractor seat or at the desk gives farmers the opportunity to reflect on the 2015 growing season. Despite numerous challenges presented, the year from a production standpoint was successful for most. Several farmers have shared they harvested their highest yielding crops ever, surpassing 2014.

Preliminary research at the Northern Illinois Agronomy Research Center has been assimilated by Dr. Greg Steckel and Dr. Emerson Nafziger. Our corn date of planting study which compared a full season corn variety vs. shorter season variety X four planting dates (April 7th, April 17th , May 1st , May 20th ) X with and without fungicide application. Despite early season rains, our plots were planted in April and May. In previous years the final planting date often neared June.

Observations from Dr. Nafziger include

"The planting date response was much flatter than we normally see, the full season variety P1221 with fungicide barely dropped in yield with late planting."(As mentioned, the last planting date in 2015 was May 20, comparatively earlier than previous years)

"We did not see a larger effect of delayed planting on the later-maturing hybrid, as we might have expected to see. We saw the opposite."

"Fungicide gave an average yield increase of about 15 bushels per acre across hybrids and planting dates. It interacted with both hybrid and planting date, but mostly by increasing yield by different amounts rather than only some of the time." This is not surprising with the disease pressure in 2015. There were obvious varietal differences, but in my field visits, Northern corn leaf blight, and to a lesser extent Grey leaf spot were easily found.

"As always, take caution about putting too much weight on results from one year". Dr. Nafziger "went back and looked at the historic data and in this trial from 2010 through 2014, fungicide produced a significant yield response twice – in 2013 and 2014 – and the average over those 5 years was 3.7 bushels, not enough to pay for the practice."

We encourage farmers to take advantage of upcoming University of Illinois programs to enhance skills for their farming operation, including then 2015 Illinois Farm Economics Summit programs. The northern Illinois date is December 15th in DeKalb at Farranda's Banquet Center.

Source: illinois.edu

Video: Spring 2026 weather outlook for Wisconsin; What an early-arriving El Niño could mean

Northeast Wisconsin is a small corner of the world, but our weather is still affected by what happens across the globe.

That includes in the equatorial Pacific, where changes between El Niño and La Niña play a role in the weather here -- and boy, have there been some abrupt changes as of late.

El Niño and La Niña are the two phases of what is collectively known as the El Niño Southern Oscillation, or ENSO for short. These are the swings back and forth from unusually warm to unusually cold sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean along the equator.

Since this past September, we have been in a weak La Niña, which means water temperatures near the Eastern Pacific equator have been cooler than usual. That's where we're at right now.

Even last fall, the long-term outlook suggested a return to neutral conditions by spring and potentially El Niño conditions by summer.

But there are some signs this may be happening faster than usual, which could accelerate the onset of El Niño.

Over the last few weeks, unusually strong bursts of westerly winds farther west in the Pacific -- where sea surface temperatures are warmer than average -- have been observed. There is a chance that this could accelerate the warming of those eastern Pacific waters and potentially push us into El Niño sooner than usual.

If we do enter El Nino by spring -- which we'll define as the period of March, April and May -- there are some long-term correlations with our weather here in Northeast Wisconsin.

Looking at a map of anomalously warm weather, most of the upper Great Lakes doesn't show a strong correlation, but in general, the northern tiers of the United States do tend to lean to that direction.

The stronger correlation is with precipitation. El Niño conditions in spring have historically come with a higher risk of very dry weather over that time frame, so this will definitely be a transition we'll have to watch closely as we move out of winter.