It's a no-brainer that you will want to order your seed corn early for 2013. Ordering has moved up over the last decade anyway, making the next few weeks prime territory for making initial seed orders. That's certainly true this year.
Dave Nanda, director of genetics and technology for Seed Consultants, Inc., and the sales staff, including Todd Jeffries, Batesville, say that their company will have enough seed. It's the same message being sent by other companies, including Pioneer and Beck's Hybrids.
However, like those other companies, Nanda says supplies of some of the hybrids may be tight. It's best to lock up your seed order early if you want to get the pick of the hybrids.
How much the drought affected overall seed production in the U.S. remains to be seen. At least some dryland acres in Indiana were destroyed, but a large percentage of the crop is grown on irrigated acres across the country. Pioneer spokespersons say that since they have production spread across the country, and since there were different growing conditions in each place, they have plenty of seed for 2013.
One aspect that may be less obvious is that sorting out what they have available, treating seed and getting it delivered on time can be a challenge for any company. Nanda says Seed Consultants, Inc. is encouraging customers to take delivery early, and work with their salesman. Last year a late harvest of a short crop, coupled with an early planting season created physical problems in getting the seed to where it needed to be when it needed to be there. His company, at least, is making adjustments to make sure that the flow is better for 2013. If customers accept early delivery, it will give them more time to spread out the workload and get everything in everyone's hands by the time planting season rolls around.