Poor weather not only disrupted planting season for crops like corn in Mississippi, but it also affected this year's wheat harvest, which does not have a high tolerance for abundant rainfall.
Corn planting 2020
"Mississippi probably only planted about 50% of intended corn acres, which, according to USDA estimates, we intended to plant 710,000 acres," said Erick Larson, corn specialist with Mississippi State University Extension. "We most likely planted around 350,000 or maybe a bit more. However, the lack of opportunity to plant during March in most areas and only a couple of days in the first two weeks of April cut into acreage and intentions, particularly for the Delta region."
Luckily, only a little replanting was necessary.
"There were some stand-related issues, particularly for some people who did plant early this year in March or early April, but it wasn't nearly as bad as last year," he said. "Most of the corn has come up to a good stand and hasn't experienced the prevalent stand-related issues like we had last year."
The 2020 corn crop is progressing well.
"We've had relatively good weather since the last week of April and the first week of May, which was when a lot of corn was planted in some regions," Larson said. "We have a wide range of corn growth relative to wide variance of planting dates. In Mississippi, we don't have much early planted corn in March and early April, except in the more southerly regions near or south of I-20.
"South Mississippi may have a relatively early crop if they were able to plant early, but most of the state is going to have a crop that is a bit on the late side. Most of Mississippi’s corn is generally going to tassel from June 10 to June 25, which is a little later than normal.”
The most widely planted hybrid in the state is likely Dekalb DKC70-27, particularly on irrigated acreage. For dryland acreage, the Dekalb DKC67-44 is probably the most widely planted.
One challenge corn farmers dealt with the first week of June is cornstalks breaking as a result of high winds.
"We refer to it as greensnap. A lot of our corn was still in rapid vegetative growth stages, and strong wind caused the stalks to break," Larson said. "There are cases of this happening scattered all over the state. There may be some cases in more southerly areas that got high winds from the recent tropical storm, but a lot of the cases of greensnap were from localized storms prior to the tropical storm."
The biggest yield determining factor going forward, besides rainfall, will be the average temperatures over the next 30 days.
"Normally, the nighttime temperature for the 30 days after tasseling is one of the strongest barometers for yield potential, particularly in irrigated corn," he said. "Cooler temperatures are more favorable for high corn yields, and the normal temperature is 70 degrees."
Wheat harvest
Mississippi has had historically low acreage of wheat for about the last three years. According to USDA, the U.S. is down 1% in wheat.
"This year we didn't have a lot of wheat acreage," Larson said. "We had extremely high rainfall this spring, which reduces wheat productivity considerably. I travel the state a good bit and don't see a lot of production wheat fields. I'm expecting generally a below-average crop this year."
Rainy weather at the beginning of the harvesting period for wheat does not bode well for the crop's overall yield.
"Hopefully, growers were able to harvest their wheat before the rain as opposed to harvesting delayed because of rainfall and wet fields," Larson said.
"For the last five years, we've been somewhere between 40,000 to 65,000 acres of wheat. Poor wheat market prices and complications during fall planting time have kept wheat plantings at historically low levels. Wheat productivity will also likely be limited due to record rainfall this spring, particularly through the month of April. Wheat can handle some rainfall, but when we start getting a lot of rainfall during April and May, it cuts into our productivity and the yield potential."
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