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| For corn we need to get it planted earlly enough to pollinate and try to fill the ear before it it gets too hot in late July and August. Not worried about the heat units to mature or any other thing except the moisture to keep the plant alive and produce grain. Where we're at we don't feel we can plant until April 1 without too much risk of frost and most folks will agree that April 10 to 15th is the "ideal" date to put corn in the ground. Much later than that and you risk hitting the heat in July.
You could plant corn up until probably sometime mid June and still have it mature ok, but it will run out of moisture for us in the last two weeks of July and most of August.
We're sort of in between with beans here. North of us it's a race to see how early they can get them in the ground. Around here some people think they want to plant a mid group 3 early (May1 to May 15) and beat the heat, others will swear they should plant a mid group 4 later in the spring, the last week in May and first 2 weeks in June. The idea behind the later planted group 4 is to keep it alive through the heat, but have it flowering and filling in September when we are more likely to get some fall rains. I think down in SE Kansas Mark's season will even be longer, they start earlier on corn and will plant beans later than we do, I'll let him expand on that if he reads this.
Our harvest is different than most of you folks up north, we'll have corn ready to shell from the last week in August on depending on the maturity and how early it was planted. For us if we plant a 114 day hybrid mid April it will be dry enough to go straight to the bin or elevator by the middle of September. Some folks on thinner dirt that has limited yield potential will go to a realy short season hybrid to get it mature before they run out of moisture, those 95 to 100 day maturities will normally shell in late August.
Early planted group 3 beans will be dry in early to mid September, later planted group 4 beans will be dry in early October. Average first freeze is something like October 15th so having a crop mature before a frost is never a problem except for double crop beans behind wheat or double cropped milo.
I will say that if you would just tell me when it will rain I could tailor a plan to fit the season just right, but I haven't found the right weatherman yet.
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ATTENION: Survey on planted corn for week ending 4/20
