Agronomic Insights: 5/23/25

Week of May 19, 2025 Local, professional reports straight from the field,
from all regions serviced by Ag Partners.

Meet this week’s featured agronomists:

Please note the upcoming deadlines for Seed returns:

Corn due by June 15
Soybeans due by July 3
Packaging/pallets/black boxes due by July 3

Returns received after these dates will be subject to a restocking fee.

WEST

Belle Plaine – Le Center – Le Sueur – Morristown – Traverse

Another roller coaster of a week here in the Central Region!

Most of the area received between 2 to 3 inches of cold, windy rain. As the sun starts to peek back out, we’re hopeful for warmer temperatures and more sunshine to help get this crop moving.

Nearly everything is planted, and most fields are either emerged or just about to. The majority of the corn planted in April is looking strong, with the exception of a few fields that experienced stand loss due to crusting. Fortunately, with the help of rotary hoes and a stretch of warm weather, enough plants have emerged to achieve a satisfactory stand.

We’ve noticed that some of the last-planted acres have areas with delayed emergence, likely due to seeds sitting in dry soil. While I’m optimistic they’ll come up, we all know that uniform emergence offers the best opportunity for top-end yields. That said, I’m overall very pleased with what I’ve been seeing out in the field. We’re now preparing for post-emergence weed control and sidedress nitrogen applications. We’ve got a strong start to this crop—let’s make sure we continue to take great care of it. – Chad

*Corn that had been planted in May’s dry soil conditions was in need of rain. Here is an example of seed I dug up that had not sprouted because of dry soil.*

EAST

Goodhue – Kenyon – Lake City – Pine Island – Wanamingo

This year’s planting season was fast and furious, with the majority of our planting being done in 7-10 days. For the most part, both corn and soybean stands look really good. However, don’t just rely on the 55mph scouting, it is worth your time now, when it dries out, to walk your fields and see if there are any stand issues. This field was planted and rolled on April 26th, followed by a heavy rain event, then a nice dry, but hot planting period. Stands close to the road were acceptable, but a majority of the field was less than 1/2 a stand and had to be replanted.

I hope everyone was able to catch their breath during this nice rainy period before post spraying applications and corn side-dress applications hit high gear. – Todd

SOUTH

Elgin – Lewiston – Stewartville

Hold on to your hats, it’s been a windy week! Most have wrapped up planting corn and have made good progress on soybeans, while others have finished planting entirely. As the corn emerges, it is important to evaluate your stand as well as visually assess growth and development of seedlings. Stand counts can give insight into early season plant health, uniformity, and overall help you decide if a replant is necessary. The easiest way to do this is to measure 1/1000th of an acre based on your row width.

Once you have your tape measure laid out along the row, count plants and multiply by 1,000 to get your plant population per acre. I recommend doing this a few times in each field, choosing random spots, and taking your average population. This is also a great opportunity to look at weed pressure. From afar, fields may look clean but as we look closely along field edges and fence lines, grasses and broadleaves have started to emerge. These weeds are best controlled when an application is made while weeds are small. As always, contact your local Ag Partners Agronomist with any questions! – Madalynn

*Stand Counts : Measure out 17 feet, 5 inches if you have 30-inch rows. Count the number of plants and multiply by 1000*

*Early season control, keeps weeds from stealing valuable moisture & nutrients from our crop.*

WISCONSIN

Ellsworth

Planting in Wisconsin is pretty well wrapped up, which means onto spraying and side dress season once it dries out from these recent rains. With the crop in the ground, this also means seed return season is upon us as well. Please be timely with any seed and packaging returns you may have, as the June 15th corn return deadline is quickly approaching. Soybean returns are due by July 3rd. Timely returns allow Ag Partners to square up your agronomy accounts sooner and allows our partnered seed brands to get any leftover seed back into their environmentally controlled warehouses. Contact your Ag Partners Agronomist if there are still some returns on farm. Thank you! – Brady