Its not often that we wish for an inch of rain during planting season! The main message this week is get your seed into moisture.
We plant corn 3” deep and soybeans 2 ¼” deep without any issues when the soil on top is powder. Some folks who are uncomfortable planting that deep set their row cleaners down to move an inch or two of the dry soil away to get into moisture. It leaves the field ridgy but is one way to get down to moisture. The no-till fields should have no issues from what I have seen.
Another thing to keep in mind is your down pressure. Proper down pressure does two things.
It allows you maintain a consistent depth that we always talk about.
We rarely talk about this second point because we usually have adequate or too much moisture so its not an issue. We need enough down pressure to ensure the sidewall stays intact until the seed gets to the bottom of the trench. In the really dry soil conditions that we have right now, the sidewall can crumble before the seed reaches the bottom. This will give erratic seed depth even if the disc openers were at the proper depth. Seed falling on top of this dry soil will also hinder germination.
So check out your seed trench.. You may actually need to INCREASE your down pressure to maintain your furrow to allow the seed to reach the bottom.
A couple articles you may find interesting:
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