Corn Planting Date not as Important as Other Factors

Chad Lee, Extension Agronomist, University of Kentucky
For many producers, spring planting is late. While everyone is anxious to get a crop planted, corn yield may not be as tied to planting date as we think. In fact, planting into good soil conditions may be just as important as planting date.

Fig. 1 Corn planting

Over the past few years, farmers have sent me planting dates and yields from their fields. We found that planting date has little effect on corn yield. We had 625 fields from Central Kentucky where we compared yield to planting date. The resulting curve had an r-square of 0.0823, which basically means that there is no relationship between planting date and yield in Central Kentucky (Fig. 1). When comparing planting date to yield from 59 fields in the Green River area, the r-square was only 0.1512. Again, there is very little relationship between planting date and corn yield.

Delayed Corn Planting Doesn't Mean Lower Yields

Chad Lee, Extension Agronomist, University of Kentucky

Corn planting is slower across the majority of Kentucky this year. Again, we are faced with the temptation to get into fields as soon as possible. Simply having some corn in the fields will help us sleep better at night. But if we get into the fields too early we may have nightmares later in the season. Getting into a field one day too early often leads to sidewall compaction, which can severely hurt yields.