Corn planting by Iowa farmers is off to an excellent start and looks to make continued progress over the coming week with dry and warm/hot weather forecast. For soils with sufficient moisture, this warm weather upcoming will support rapid seed germination and plant emergence. The featured chart looks into this by plotting the period to accumulate at least 120 Growing Degree Days (GDD)s by a given start date (planting date) for Ames. The 120 value is not a rigid growth requirement and is based on air temperature, instead of soil temperature, which more governs development over this period. The value is ballpark though and illustrative of things that happen during the early growing season. Consider a planting date of 1 April. It took over three weeks to reach this GDD accumulation threshold. For mid April planting dates, the period is down to two weeks and now is presently running just over one week. This is the general caveat for planting too early in the season, the seeds will sit in the ground for a while awaiting warmer temperatures. This can be a vulnerable period for pathogens and other sub-optimal things, particularly if the soils are very wet as well.

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Tags:   gdd