News

Heat making up for planting delays in Minnesota

There are concerns prolonged corn planting delays in parts of the Midwest could limit yield potential.

Northwest Minnesota farmer Austen Germolus says they were unable to begin planting until the end of May, but recent heat is helping the crop catch up.

“It was cold (this spring), the trees hadn’t even put leaves on (and) the ground was cold. And once (the weather) turned around, it turned around pretty fast. And once you got your crops in it didn’t take long for them to germinate (and emerge) out of the ground. So I think everything kind of played out normally even though it was late.”

He tells Brownfield a couple 100-degree days and a nice rain Monday night have him confident about corn pollination once July rolls around.

“We’ll be on track. Usually we like to say ‘knee high by the 4th of July’ with corn, and I would say a vast majority of corn will be to that state or past it.”

Germolus says a lot of farmers in his area considered going to a shorter season corn maturity, but most “stuck with their plan” despite the late start to planting.