Push is on for soybean planting

Thursday, June 2, 2011

by SUSAN MANN

This spring’s wet weather had delayed the planting of Ontario’s soybean crop and that may result in a small decline in yields.

Horst Bohner, Ontario agriculture ministry soybean specialist, says as of today there are about one to 1.5 million acres across the province still to be planted. Farmers who could plant today were hard at it. If there isn’t any rain this weekend he predicts many farmers will push hard to get their soybeans in the ground and be done planting either on the weekend or by the middle of next week.

Bohner says across the province 20 to 30 per cent of the crop is currently planted but that will change rapidly. Farmers with heavy, clay soils still haven’t been able to plant and some haven’t even started. In eastern and central Ontario, farmers have a lot more of the crop planted.

The ideal planting time for soybeans is May 10 to 24. “This year we’re obviously a week to two weeks past that,” he says. “There’s a yield hit to planting in the early part of June. It’s about 10 per cent.”

But if farmers are able to get their crop planted this week, there’s still an opportunity for an average crop.

Once the crop is in the ground, Bohner says, it needs heat and timely moisture “but not flooding.”

The delay in planting the soybean crop is making it challenging for farmers to get other necessary fieldwork done. Crosby Devitt, Grain Farmers of Ontario manager of market development and research, says during the next week to 10 days the wheat crop will be heading out and that’s the time farmers need to apply fungicides for fusarium control. But it will be a challenge to get everything done in the fields “when it all has to be done at the same time.”

Bohner says this year 2.6 to 2.7 million acres of soybeans will be planted. BF