Should You Have Waited For the Ideal Soil Temperature Before Starting Planting?

by

Opinion

It definitely seems to be one of those springs that will get referred to as, “remember the spring of 2014?”

It isn’t too late yet, but frustration is really settling in as farmers just want to get #plant14 really going or, for many, just started. No matter if you are in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba or Ontario winter seems to want to linger and not let summer shine.

Rain or shine every hour counts as you can see in this tweet.

For those that have planted some crop before the latest rounds of blizzards in Western Canada (and treated their seed), their early work will show yield benefits.  For those that couldn’t start due to wet ground or were waiting for the ideal soil temperature the wait continues.

It really does beg the question, should you wait for the ideal soil temperature or just get planting started and hope for this late snowy wet weather in May?  Many people still wait for the grass to get green and the trees to show buds while other farmers say just get ‘er done. To me it does seem that more farmers are pushing the soil temperature envelope instead of waiting for the IDEAL situation. For many IDEAL is not worth waiting for.

DOES IT PAY TO WAIT FOR THE IDEAL SOIL TEMPERATURE?

 

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