Conditions for the 2025 planting season have been ideal for area farmers to complete planting in seemingly record time. As the crop begins to emerge, Bayer Technical Agronomist Lance Tarchionne says the early-planted crop, especially corn, has been coming up perfectly. However, there has been some frustration on the soybean side.
“There are some soybeans that went in, particularly the week before Easter, that we got some pretty good rain– that’s kind of the only good rain we’ve had all spring was Easter weekend. Some of that stuff that got planted the week before Easter, that soil got hard after that rain, and those soybeans struggled,” says Tarchionne. “There have been some situations where some replanting was necessary. In most cases, all that’s necessary is patience to give them time to push through.”
Tarchionne adds that there are a few reasons for this, such as more no-till and high-residue cropping systems on soybean fields.
“It’s also a factor that soybeans require more heat units to emerge than corn. So even though we talk about planting soybeans early, and we talk about how corn being in cold, wet soils can be detrimental, soybeans don’t enjoy being in cold, wet soil, either. It does take warmer soil for soybeans to germinate and grow,” says Tarchionne. “You combine that with the fact that we’re doing more tillage ahead of corn, and the tilled dark soil warms up the fastest. The untilled lighter soils, you know, warm up much, much slower.”
Tarchionne adds that the soybean fields that were planted earlier than the week of Easter had better conditions for emergence this year.
