With a majority of the crops getting planted across Iowa, there are some farmers that are choosing to replant.

Landus Cooperative Field Agronomist Dan Bjorklund says following lots of precipitation early on in the planting season caused farmers issues when determining when to plant crops, but he explains what he saw in some of the fields in the Paton and Rippey areas of Greene County in mid to late April.

“And almost all those fields, when you walked out, the ground was just like concrete. And so, you’re trying to find these plants and they’re all over the place. There are some corn plants, I’m talking corn now, that made it through, and then you might have three, four up to ten feet where there’s nothing. You take a spade and you try to dig down to find out where that seed is, and it’s so hard, it crusted over.”     

Bjorklund notes that this month, planting has gone a lot smoother, with most of the corn not showing signs of sprouting yet, due to the cooler temperatures. He says this week has been exceptional in terms of ideal growing conditions that have led to more corn pushing up, however there are some noticeable signs of emergence variables and gaps between crop rows. 

Bjorklund is hopeful with the anticipated rainfall over the next few days that it will help give, especially corn, a better chance of progressing, while soybeans are more self-sufficient, but they could obviously use some precipitation as well.