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MO farmer hopes late-planted corn can catch up
A western Missouri farmer is hoping his late planted corn will catch come close to catching up by harvest.
Nathan Alpers planted part of his corn crop in April, but he tells Brownfield consistent rains slowed planting and are causing him to replant several acres.
“It’s for sure behind but we don’t know how far behind it will be for some of this other corn that’s just laid in the ground a month,” he said. “Hopefully we’re not set back too far as far as losing yield potential.”
But Alpers said he’s had corn planted in June reach 200 bushels before. He says the late planted corn will likely shorten its own development and pollinate early to catch up.
“This early corn hadn’t received any GDU’s, or a lot of them, this (late corn) could get the GDU’s and really crank and grow fast,” he said. “I still suspect that our corn could all pollinate in two to two and a half weeks if we could just get going here pretty quickly.”
Alpers expects harvest to drag out longer than normal and says he might end up harvesting soybeans between his early and late planted corn.
