Planting of Ontario’s corn crop well ahead of schedule

by SUSAN MANN

Corn planting across most of Ontario is in full swing with growers having 80 per cent of the crop already in the ground despite field preparation activity being a week behind normal last month due to a lack of heat.

Gilles Quesnel, provincial agriculture ministry field crop integrated pest management specialist, says growers normally like to have 80 per cent of the crop in the ground by May 15th  “and that’s the point that we’re at now across the province.” Corn crop planting this year is seven to 10 days ahead of an average planting year.

But some small pockets of the province only have 30 per cent of the corn in the ground because they received lots of rain recently. In the Leamington area, some locations received up to three inches of rain on May 4. “Some of the growers are still waiting to get on the land.”

The last date for planting corn depends on what growers want to do with the crop. Corn for grain needs to be planted by the first week of May because after that time “yield potential will start to go down slowly,” he says. “As long as the soil is ready to be planted, the earlier corn is planted (in May) the better.”

For much of the province, “there is a theoretical target date that seems to work well and that’s somewhere around May 5th,” he notes. But with the huge corn acreage in Ontario that needs to be planted, not all of the crop can be sown on that date.

With this week’s heat, growers still planting should not work the ground too far ahead of planting and not work it any more than absolutely necessary, he notes. Any ground that’s fluffed and worked up is “losing a lot of moisture” and that’s why it’s best to not overwork the soil and not work it too deep.

For crop insurance customers, the final corn-planting deadline is May 31 for farmers in northern Ontario, June 10 for growers in eastern and central Ontario and June 15 for those in Southwestern Ontario along with areas along the shores of Lake Ontario, Niagara and south of Ottawa in eastern Ontario. Agricorp says on its website it has divided the province into five planting areas and determined the planting regions based on consultations with industry and provincial agriculture ministry crop specialists, available crop heat units, production insurance historical claim rate experience and other specific geographical characteristics.

Agricorp spokesperson Stephanie Charest says by email last year, 1.4 million acres of corn across Ontario were covered by production insurance and that represented about 70 per cent of last year’s acreage.

Earlier this year, Statistics Canada reported in its principal field crops planting intentions report Ontario farmers intended to grow 2.1 million acres of corn this year, which is 11.5 per cent higher than last year at 1.9 million acres. BF