News

No rush on spring fieldwork

A northeast Ohio farmer says planting earlier is not on his radar even with the warmer-than-usual winter.

Kent Edwards grows corn, soybeans, and wheat with his family in Erie County.

“We’ve never had good luck planting our corn early,” he says. “We will not ground down early and get it ready and put some pre-anhydrous or something like that down for our corn crop.”

His region usually averages 24 inches of snow over the winter.  He tells Brownfield there’s probably been less than 3 inches so far.

“We literally have not had to push snow,” he says. “Our snow precipitation is way under normal.”

Edwards says his winter wheat crop looks about average and he’s concerned about what the mild conditions could mean for pest issues.

Edwards was recently named Ohio Corn & Wheat’s wheat yield winner with 169.4 bushels per acre in 2023 and he placed third in the national contest.