Timely Discussion

This kind of gets to the question I asked dad last week: how much of the decision for guys to start planting depends on when their neighbors start planting?

The farmer on the other end of the line was planting corn. It was just a few days ago. He started talking to me like I had known him for years. This was the first time I had ever talked to him, but I knew exactly what he was talking about. I have fretted over similar situations and made similar observations for years.

"Tom, I just don't get it," he said. "I just don't get it."

OK, don't get what?

"I finally started planting at noon today, my fields are well-tiled, we're on good black dirt, and it's still plenty damp for me. Yet I've got neighbors that started four or five days ago, and some of their land isn't that far from mine, and isn't well-tiled. It had to be mudballs."

Maybe it was. But that's their call to make. If you've earned the right to farm by sticking it out all these years and getting the bills paid, I guess you've got the right to decide when it's time to pull the trigger and plant. I'll have to admit, though, some of the things I've seen this spring already makes me wonder if anybody ever reads our magazine, Website or anybody else's. Yes, it's a late spring, but just how soon do you start? And at what cost?

I think last week, the forecast figured into the decision-making process.  While it wasn't quite ready, the forecast was showing rain for the foreseeable future.  If we were going to get any corn planted, we had to do it.  We started on Wednesday, didn't do anything on Thursday, waiting to see if it was actually going to rain.  Then we started again on Friday on marginally good soil, gave it a little go on Saturday before too much mud and some drizzle stopped us.  It wasn't very good, and we probably compacted some areas, but the stuff we planted Wednesday is starting to pop through.  The neighbors toiling in the fields is definitely an encouragement to get started.  I'll generally be on the mid to early side of things, but we have some light, well-drained soils also.  It's a tough call, but that's why we make the big bucks.