It would be nice to say that I am now finished planting corn, at least my corn for grain, however I have just 58 acres planted, out of 175. I intended to plant about 225, but have scaled that back a bit because of high fertilizer. We are wet now after 2 inches of rain the night before last, we will need a rain about Monday because the corn I planted will be crusted in. Water standing in the furrows is not a good sight. Obviously this year is going to be a challenge(aren't they all?).
We are not the cornbelt, we do not have the potential for 200+ corn, well, maybe we do but it is about once in 10 years, so you can't use the inputs like you would in Illinois or Iowa. I switched to dry fertilizer this year from liquid, NH3 is still the most popular form of N. I plant 23500 seeds per acre in a 30 inch row, about an inch and a half deep. Usually I throw a furrow about 3 inches tall, a problem if you get a heavy rain. The trend is toward populations of 27000+, the best corn I ever raised was with 23500, 100 pounds of N and 50 of P, so I stick with that recipe. Higher populations will yield more in a good year, but in our frequent 2 month dry snaps during the summer, higher populations will also lend to corn going down and barren plants. All the corn I plant this year will be roundup ready, I will go over the top with either Atrazine or Harness after planting for weed control, and then come back with roundup if needed. About 80 acres this year is triple stacked corn.
I have a John Deere planter, 6 row. It uses a finger pickup mechanism I should take a picture of. There are I believe 26 fingers on a wheel, with tiny springs running on sort of a cam. The wheel turns down into the corn, and as it comes up the spring pulls it shut, grasping one seed. It goes past a brush that gets rid of any extra riders, and then is ejected onto a tiny little stepped conveyor belt, that drops it into the slot. It is a good system, a bit complicated but very accurate. Much better than plates.
Because our air is so cool most of our pastures are still black. I am still feeding cattle. With all the water, if it can ever stay warm we will be in an ocean of grass, but for the moment there are alot of very unsatisfied cattle around here, alot of cattle in the road ditch as you drive around my neighborhood.
The alfalfa is doing great in this cool wet weather, it will probably be ready to cut before I am even done planting corn, I was hoping to be half way through soybeans when we cut it for the first time. It has been sprayed for weevil, luckily we got that on before the rain. For the most part, this is a typical spring, too cool to being with. Just wait, by mid July I can almost promise I will be crying for rain, and complaining about temps crowding 100F.