Seed buying steady, despite earlier plantings

By Angela Bauer

L IFESTYLES EDITOR

A pandemic­inspired trend in backyard gardening that has pushed seed­buying season’s start from mid­February to early January hasn’t carried over to the rowcrop planting seen on west­central Illinois farms, according to Tim Greene, president of Burrus Brothers and Associated Growers, the selling arm of Burrus Seed.

That stems, in large part, from the fact that farmers typically shop early to begin with, he said.

“One of the reasons farmer­growers purchase early in the season — I mean people who or­ der (seeds for next season) before they get their crops out the previous year, in August or September” — comes down to wanting the discounts offered on early orders and, in some cases, trying to secure specific hybrids, Greene said.

It’s also rarely a matter of trying to beat Mother Nature at her own weather game.

“Normal planting time around here is going to be the first part of April,” Greene said. “We start capturing orders (for seed) in mid­ to late August or September. They order eight to nine months ahead of when they’re going to put that in the ground.”

That’s not to say there aren’t some relative late­ comers.

“The bulk of the orders (are placed) in fall and … approximately 85% of the product we’re going to sell to that farmer­grower is going to be on order by Jan. 10,” he said.

Even if they’re not ordering seed earlier, some farmers are planting just a bit earlier, in part because while “weather is always a critical factor,” technological advances in seed production help offset the damage caused by a too­rainy season or a too­dry season, Greene said.

“It allows growers to plant a little earlier,” he said. “More growers are attempting to plant earlier … especially soybean. They’re trying to plant

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soybean at the same time they plant their corn.”

Corn traditionally has been planted in early April, with growers then waiting until the end of April or early May to plant soybean. Planting earlier allows for both maximum growing time and an earlier harvest, which then gives farmers more time in the fall to prepare their fields for winter, Greene said.

“It’s really changed over the last few years,” he said. “ It’s moved up that soybean planting by several weeks. That’s really just an effort to capture more yield, because studies have shown planting earlier — getting the crop up and established — captures more yield through (al­ amenic181/Getty Images/iStockphoto A pandemic­inspired trend in backyard gardening that has pushed seed­buying season’s start from mid­February to early January doesn't seem to have carried over to the row­crop planting seen on west­central Illinois farms. lowing) more growing days.”

The earlier planting may seem relatively minor, but it has huge results, Greene said.

“As the world popula­ tion grows and there is less and less farmland, we need to increase our yield,” he said. “We’re always looking for different things that can help us increase our yield.”