Growing, harvest seasons moving for Corn Belt growers?

IVESDALE, Ill. — Are the planting and harvest seasons shifting forward for farmers in the Midwest and across the U.S. Corn Belt?

One agronomist who has been watching the seasons change thinks it could be happening.

“I truly believe that our growing season has shifted. It has shifted a month, a month later in the spring, a month later in the fall,” said John Brien, eastern agronomy manager for AgriGold.

Brien was part of a panel of AgriGold agronomists at the AgriGold Specialty Products Conference who spoke on conditions impacting the 2022 U.S. corn and soybean crop.

One of the factors of the 2022 growing year that all the agronomists commented on was that the U.S. corn crop was planted later than usual and much later than usual in some regions.

Brien said he believes that later corn planting — planting in later May and even into June — could become the rule and not the exception as seasons shift.

“I have no scientific evidence to back this up, this is just a hunch and watching the world go by, whatever you want to call it — climate change, we won’t get into that today,” he said.

Brien said the fact that the later planting was widespread and not limited to a specific area or region could bolster the idea of planting seasons moving later.

“These guys were talking about how this corn got planted a month later. I believe this is our new normal. Ten years ago, that would have been a crop disaster. I have no problem with this later planted crop just simply because I believe we have another month at the end that we normally don’t have,” he said.