S4E23: Statewide Crop Conditions and Corn Nitrogen Management Tools

Recorded: 6/2/26

Join Penn State Extension Agronomy Educators for a timely and practical conversation on current crop conditions across Pennsylvania. In this episode, the team shares on-the-ground observations from fields spanning multiple regions. They highlight how recent weather patterns, soil moisture variability, and crop growth stages are shaping corn and forage performance. 

The discussion includes a question about one of the most critical in-season decisions: nitrogen management in corn. Educators will outline practical tools and approaches farmers can use right now.  

Hosts: Justin Brackenrich and Dwane Miller, Penn State Extension
Guest(s): Erin Cuprinka and Heidi Reed, Penn State Extension

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Transcript

Dwane Miller (00:18)
Hi folks, Welcome to another edition of Penn State's Agronomy Highlights Podcast. I'm Dwane Miller. I'll be your host here for this episode. And I'm joined here from the best from the west. I got Justin Brackenrich. How you doing, Justin?

Justin Brackenrich (00:32)
Like that. I'm good, Dwane. How are you this morning?

Dwane Miller (00:34)
All right. Well, we're here we are. June second. We we turned the corner. we got Memorial Day out of the way and ⁓ we got sunshine, we got nice temperatures, we got low humidity. There is a lot going on in agriculture right now, at least in my corner of the woods.

Justin Brackenrich (00:51)
Yeah, I mean we backed up off of what, three or four days of good rain right into perfect weather and and I think early in the year people were like, Boy, I'm behind, man, this isn't gonna work out. now all of sudden it feels like right back on schedule.

Dwane Miller (01:04)
I think things will catch up pretty quickly. And we've got a different type of episode today. We are going to focus on some crop conditions across the state. And we pulled in a couple other educators from around the state. And we're going to talk to each of those folks about what they're seeing across their corner of the state. And then we'll tackle one central question for our episode.

I'm gonna introduce our guests for this episode. We're gonna start down in Lancaster. Gonna say hi to Heidi Reed. Heidi, you wanna introduce yourself please?

Heidi Reed (01:36)
Hello everyone, I'm Heidi Reid, agronomy educator based in Lancaster. Happy to join today.

Dwane Miller (01:41)
Thanks, Heidi. And also from the West, we've got Erin Cuprinka

Erin Cuprinka (01:45)
everyone Erin Cuprinka based out of Mercer County and like like Dwane said, ⁓ I handle the entire Northwest PA.

Dwane Miller (01:52)
Okay, so from a geography perspective, we've got northwestern PA, we've got southwestern PA, we've got Lancaster area, and I come to you from like the Schuylkill Carbon, southern Pocono, ⁓ area of the state. So let's start. maybe I'll pick on Heidi first, since you might have the most progressed crops. What are you seeing out there?

Talking to folks, what's what's happening out in the fields in Lancaster right now?

Heidi Reed (02:19)
Sure. So ⁓ in terms of our grain crops, barley is really progressing. ⁓ it is just starting to turn that light golden brown, still n not mature, but on its way into ripening. and we've got wheat just starting to get into the milk stage. so we'll be doing our wheat tour next week to assess for ⁓ head scab, and it'll be a little

bit further by then. in terms of our soybeans, we're looking at about V three on down to maybe it was just planted in the last week. And for corn, I would venture to guess very little corn that has not been planted in the southeastern region of the state. We have some corn at V five, V6,

ready to be side dressed and then there's some that might have just gone in in the last week but for sure planting has wrapped up on corn. and I did just see this morning on my drive to work we've got tobacco starting to be transplanted down here. So things are are moving along. a lot of hay still being made if folks couldn't get it made last week but you hit the nail on the head with ideal conditions.

we are technically still above average for growing degree days for the year. However, that is mostly attributed to those couple of weeks of real warm weather very early in the year, like in March, April. And now you know things have have been cool for a while and our growing degree accumulation is

a bit slow so it it seems cool even though overall we have a lot of growing degree days for the year and then in the southeast we are still technically in a drought even though we had ⁓ some rain last week but we are still dry for our totals for the year so

Hoping to see some more rain coming in this weekend and then, steady every couple of days. The half an inch of rain would be lovely.

Dwane Miller (04:17)
I put my farmer hat on here for a little bit and I was kind of like Justin said, chomping at the bit, going, my gosh, When are we gonna go? And ⁓ boy, the honeymoon's kind of wearing off right now. There's not enough hours in the day to get all those tasks accomplished. And I'll I'll go next from from my corner of the world. I'll echo

that dryness does continue when you look at the ⁓ accumulation of of moisture here in our neck of the woods. I planted my first beans April 24th and I was kind of watching those and and calculating growing degree days and moisture and we are about 25% drier than than average since that time frame. And when I look at the growing degree days, we are just slightly

cooler than that ten year historical average. But to your point, Heidi, it seemed like when you look back at it, we had that couple warm days and then another cool stretch. But seems like we're the at least in my neck of the woods, no till corn. It's finally getting a little bit of green color. It was just kind of sitting there looking pretty ugly for a while. And now it's catching up And when I

Compare ⁓ that first soybean planting that I did on the 24th, we've got 370 growing degree days. And then I look back at my some of my planning records and where we were, you know, maybe the 16th, 17th of May, we finally got another nice stretch of weather to get get some crops in the ground. And since then it's about 220 growing degree days, so really not a whole lot of degree day accumulation.

From that standpoint. We've seen a tremendous amount of progression on crop planting in in my locale. there are a lot of guys that did finish up over the weekend or maybe very early this this week. There are still some fields to to be planted when you get around. You s you're seeing planters still in the field. so there's some seed in the bag yet, but this is a decision-making process we talked about in another podcast episode.

When when the worlds collide here in in May and it's time to make hay and plant corn and plant beans and what do you choose to do? And if if you don't have enough help to fill those tractor seats, it becomes a a trade-off of of sorts. we've got a lot of everything going on. crops they're moving along, but they're moving along slowly. Corn somewhere around V three, maybe V four for some of the the most progressed stuff. And

Soybeans just being planted ⁓ maybe V one for my corner of the state. Justin, how about down in the southwest? What's going on in your neck of the woods?

Justin Brackenrich (06:53)
it's always interesting when we do these and we get together as kind of a group. ⁓ as different as we are as a state, it often seems like we we kinda all align the same way in early spring. we were really behind and Dwane I think you may have said some of that, that we got a lot of rain early and it was kind of cold. then it got hot and then it didn't.

⁓ and I think that led to one of the big questions that we've talked about a little bit is cover crops might have been a little taller than we wanted them, especially some of our cereals, because we just couldn't get in there to to spray those down. corn and beans, anywhere from VE to probably V two or V three. they're just not growing as well as maybe they would want. And and I think that's led to yesterday I was out looking at some stuff and we're starting to see maybe some zinc deficiencies and stuff like that because we are cold and we are wet.

Just for contrast, so I cover Washington Green and Fayette counties. we use Bushels as a team, the Bushels app where we can track growing degrees and and temperatures. And I set two fields for planted on May 7th. Washington right now is seven point six percent drier and four point nine percent cooler, whereas Fayette about thirty miles away is forty percent wetter and eleven percent cooler.

And so we've got like this huge spectrum of haves and have nots, right? When it comes to rain and weather a lot of it got in early because there wasn't any rain. a lot of them were behind, but but regardless. last week we got a lot of wheat and tricow and stuff sprayed. I think that was kind of our timing to to get that done because the rain was over and and we may have missed our window a little, but we do the best we can. ⁓ and right now, hay and alfalfa.

are really being taken off with as much haste as people can. We've got a really nice stretch of weather through the weekend. last thing I guess I would add is I called around and the consensus I got from farmers is if you weren't done planning, it's kind of your own fault. there were lots of of windows to get this stuff done, but most of them seem to be wrapped up, switching to hay and and kind of breathing a little, cleaning things up, getting ready to start some of their side dress or post application spraying.

Dwane Miller (08:53)
Okay, thanks Justin. We're gonna wrap up our conditions. We're gonna go north on seventy nine here. We're gonna visit the great northwest. Erin what do you have to share?

Erin Cuprinka (09:02)
All the weather reports, eighty is the cutoff, just so you know. south of eighty, we'll start there. I have one county, I have Lawrence County south of eighty. In terms of planting right now,

They they were kind of our cutoff there as far as rainfall. They got a little bit less than everything north of 80. And they are wrapping up their soybeans and corn for the most part and starting hay. If that's the way that they do down there, they usually start, they do corn soybeans and then they work on hay. Everything north of I-80 has been pretty much in the spring, it was very, very wet. The rest of the state was reporting dry, and we were very wet up there, and they are still a couple inches.

To the good for the year for the rainfall, if not more than that. depending on soil types, anything north of I-80, some of them are still drying out. And in terms of planting, we do have a lot of seed still in the bag or going into the field just this week. I've had several farmers tell me that today is the day. and as we're recording this on the second of June, the day is the day ⁓ that they're going to start planting. So it should be a nice time for

a lot of planting. Hay, a lot of hay is being cut right now and ready to be baled. in terms of drying, there's a lot of sunshine, low humidity, ⁓ but it is taking a little bit to dry it. Hay quality for our area. ⁓ the the frost has really gotten a lot of farmers if you've had low fertility or normal fertility. If I've have had some farmers that have a little bit higher fertility.

on their ground and that hay seems to have grown. ⁓ it was big enough when it got hit with the frost that you know the forage quality is still there ⁓ and the amount is still there. But in terms of hay, the hay is where it's at for the northwest coming off and stands are a little bit thinner than what they had planned. VEs

Where the crops are in Lawrence County, but up above in the northwest, a lot's still in the bag.

Dwane Miller (10:50)
And I think that's typical when we get together as educators and talk. there's this lag up there in the northwest when everybody's just kinda waiting, waiting, waiting, and you finally get an opportunity to get get in those fields. And boy, the differences in the ability ⁓ the soils across Pennsylvania. I'm I'm blessed and cursed in my area. we've got a lot of shale,

I think back to like two point one inches of rain over the Memorial Day holiday weekend. And by Tuesday afternoon, guys were back in the field already, you know, at it. Where some of these folks with the heavy ground that holds holds that water, boy, ⁓ much, much different. So thanks for all your contributions of crop conditions across the state.

Justin Brackenrich (11:36)
Well and I think back to what you're saying there, I think that's an important point to make. And and this isn't pointed at Heidi or anything, but I tell my farmers like we're not Lancaster County here, right? We're not Lebanon. we've got the hand we're dealt, we've got the ground that we've got, we've got the weather that we've got. I think sometimes we look at these planning reports that come out of other states or other areas and we, instantly think, my gosh, this one's sixty percent done, and I haven't put anything in the ground. I gotta start just to start going, right? I'm behind.

Maybe five years ago if we had had this spring, we would have been anxious. but it seems that this is becoming more typical for us to have weirder weather patterns in the spring that's either really dry and hot or really wet and cold. And I think people are getting better at it slowing down and not saying, Well, it's first of April, I gotta be out. ⁓ and and so I think, you know, I guess that's a a welcome change and kind of progression that we're seeing. ⁓ I guess I see less replants and less problems than maybe I did five years ago because people are just slowing down, saying

All right, you know, we'll get there. It'll eventually turn around, but but don't force it.

Dwane Miller (12:34)
Right, looking at conditions rather than the calendar, I think is is really important. Well, one thing you you mentioned less replants. one thing that we're not mentioning in any of our reports going around here is slugs, right? We yeah. We haven't

Justin Brackenrich (12:47)
Well you've done it now.

Yeah, yeah. I mean when when we start getting the phone calls, I'm gonna say, Call Dwane, he did this.

Dwane Miller (12:54)
That's all right. Heidi's like, you know what? My stuff's that progressed down in Lancaster. We don't even know what worry about it. It's gonna outgrow it in no time. We got that taken care of. Meanwhile, the rest of us are going, ⁓ boy, here we go, right?

our goal with these episodes is we're really gonna try to tackle one additional question. talk a couple minutes about it.

And something that we think might be timely and on on people's minds. this week's question is gonna be, I'm gonna pose this to you all of the experts here. Nitrogen prices. Hey, they're high. Everybody knows it. We're thinking about side dress time. Heidi, you just mentioned you've got some corn that's v5, v6. We're gonna be thinking about that really, really quickly. with those nitrogen prices, what tools?

What tactics should we be thinking about and using to make sure that your crop isn't undersupplied for nitrogen? But in the same token, not wasting money. So, something to think about, chew on for a second here. Anyone have any thoughts on what we should be thinking or doing and recommending?

Heidi Reed (15:07)
Yeah, well my first thought always with this is the pre-side dress nitrate test Dwane, which was recently recalibrated, if folks didn't know. fifteen or twenty years ago when that ⁓ tool was first developed, it was developed ⁓ in fields that were tilled, And we've moved significantly into no till and

the use of cover crops and there was some concern that the P S N T was not accurate for the way we currently manage our fields. ⁓ so that was recently recalibrated by Dr. Charlie White and his team a couple of years ago. And that's always the first tool that I would reach for. And Charlie also has developed another tool, the ⁓ if folks

are using cover crops, there's always a question, you know, how much nitrogen am I actually getting from this legume or how much nitrogen is being tied up by that cereal rye cover crop? how do I need to alter my nitrogen management? And that comes into play this time of year, thinking about side dress. And so this

corn and decision tool calculator, ⁓ that's been developed where it is based on your corn yield goal, your soil type, your soil organic matter, the type of cover crop, and the t amount of biomass that you developed, and then an economic optimum nitrogen application rate based on what you have is provided.

So it can be good to take a look at that before deciding on what you're gonna side dress with this year in addition to the PSNT.

Dwane Miller (16:45)
Go back to just a little bit of a conversation around the PSNT. And you just have to remember with the PSNT, if you are putting down a significant amount of nitrogen at planting, I believe that number is somewhere around that 50 pound rate, if I'm remembering correctly. Somebody can correct me if I'm if I'm wrong, but you know, folks that are

putting down two hundred pounds of ten twenty twenty and then some UAN at at herbicide time, that may not be the the most optimal tool for you if you're using a significant amount of nitrogen. So if you're in a manure situation, ⁓ hey, that that might be a a pretty good tool for you, right? Just be careful that you might not get the result you're looking for.

if you're putting on too much nitrogen on on the front end of the crop.

Justin Brackenrich (17:38)
So Dwane, I know you pulled that out of the archives, but very good. it is less than 50 pounds up front, ⁓ with starter in and or used as your herbicide carrier. So ⁓ kind of piggybacking off that, I'll shamelessly plug the podcast, season three, episode sixteen. We were joined by Rob Minon and John Spargo, and we had a very nice discussion about where PSNT testing fits.

in the scheme and how that how that kind of contributes manure and if you're using manure and mineralization. so really good episode if that's that's something interested ⁓ for you. One of the things that I I also kind of see floating around summer are spad meters or people with green seekers and things like that. And and I think there's a lot of usage to that. We've gotten a little bit better at not having to have check strips and things like that with with the tables.

but my encouragement or my advice, because Heidi and Dwane have have really answered a lot of this, is don't wait. Right. If if you're at V one or V two right now and you're gonna try to run between V five and V six, like don't start the day that you want to start putting things out, thinking about taking samples or contacting someone, whether that be your your scout or your extension person, my message is start thinking about it now.

Because if you wait till it's too late, then you're gonna say, I don't have time to mess with this. I just gotta get going, right? It's calling for rain three days from now. I gotta get this stuff out there. ⁓ think about it now. And and before you make those decisions, know what you put down, right? If you're not taking your starter and you're not kinda learning how many actual units of N did I put down out of all of this, that conversation gets a lot harder. And I talk to growers and they say, well, we put down

100 pounds of 10 20 20. We put down 20 gallons of UAN two by two. We did this and that. And I say, okay, so how many N units is that? not say anything bad, but I think the more information you can have before you start making these decisions, the better it's gonna be. And then lastly, I would add if you if you do get past this point, we also have a good episode on tissue testing, right? That's kind of another option that we've got for corn.

And when we're using some of these adaptive models or cover cropping systems, ⁓ do we know that we have enough in in that thing? Well, you know, less than twelve inches, go out there and clip off twenty plants and send them to the lab and they're gonna tell you, yeah, we need a little extra in. So that's that's my last thing to add to this.

Dwane Miller (20:00)
And I guess one of the things that that I'd reiterate is, insanity is doing the same thing over and over and over again and expecting a different result. So examine your strategy from last year. did anybody think about the amount of rain or for be able to forecast that before we got all that rain and where'd your nitrogen go, right?

Different growing situation this year. Every year's gonna be different. But you know, when I pencil out some things and if urea's eight hundred bucks a ton, we're talking about eighty-seven cents a unit for nitrogen. And there's words of nine hundred dollar urea, close to thousand dollar urea out there, no depending on where you're at and what you've got ⁓ access to.

We're coming into a situation where economics is gonna pull into play. And the other point that I guess I would drive home is think about that economic optimal rate to be doing. understand what your soils capabilities are, and just because you hear that somebody down in in the breadbasket got

Three hundred and twenty five bushel doesn't mean that your soils are capable of of doing that as well, but fertilize to the capability of your soil, I think, is is one thing that I'd like to add.

Heidi Reed (21:10)
If if you don't mind, I I just thought of this here is that for a very long time the old standby advice has been, count on a unit of nitrogen per bushel of yield that you want to achieve. And we know that at this point our our corn is ⁓ depending on the weather.

Right in a given year, but generally more efficient than that, meaning you can apply less than one unit of nitrogen per bushel of yield and still achieve your yield goal. So, a lot of folks are over applying and of again, it's weather dependent. If we don't have moisture, the corn's not going to grow regardless of what you put out. But ⁓ bear that in mind.

Erin Cuprinka (21:57)
Just to wrap it up here, everything was pretty much covered, but Dwane, I love how you threw in the economics of everything as well and what your soils are capable of because sometimes, especially in the northwest, we do compare ourselves and, keep putting in and putting in and putting in all these inputs and, we need to factor in the economics of them and, if our yields are less,

it doesn't necessarily determine how much we've made per acre compared to somebody that's putting in extra inputs. So I love how you touched on that too. One way keep all of this in mind.

Justin Brackenrich (22:26)
Another puzzle. One of my favorite conversations is you ask a f a producer, what what did you plan for on yield? And they say 180. And I say, okay, what is your historic 10 year farm average? And they say, 157, right? and and so like that kind of brings that back into perspective again, too, right? If if you know for the last 10 years you're averaging 160, I understand this idea of we're gonna out bushel this year and we're gonna get some extra money.

but if we're applying that twenty extra units at a dollar, you know, for easy math, let's call it a dollar. I mean, that's twenty dollars an acre that we're putting out there with a prayer and a finger crossed that it's all gonna work out when it hasn't over the last 10 years. just as kind of a summary of this, I think what we talked about was knowing what you put out to begin with, right? I think that's an important place to start. ⁓ next

Looking at some of the tools that we have available. Is that the PSNT and you're going out and taking a soil sample and sending that off? ⁓ is it tissue testing? Is it looking at some of these adaptive N models? You know, I would suggest something like that if you're gonna do it. That's probably a a planting season 27 activity, but it's still something for you to really think about as you're getting some of these results back. ⁓ once you send these off and you get results back, right now the decision becomes what's gonna happen between mid-June and

mid August, right? Crystal ball time. We look in and we decide to see what we're going to see. ⁓ but that's the point that I encourage you to get with your agronomist, whether you're extension ⁓ agronomist or someone at your co-op or where you're selling, present that data and say, what is our plan now? and then we start that side dressing.

Dwane Miller (24:00)
All good stuff to think about as we ⁓ come into the early part of June here, and it's it's busy time, it's go time, there's a lot of irons in the fire, but sometimes just taking a pause, taking a step back, examining, what needs done and in the in the grand scheme of things, some strategic thinking I think can can go a long way. So I want to say thanks to our guests.

for the for this episode and again they'll be joining us throughout the growing season here Erin, Heidi, and Justin. And I wish you the very best. if you're listening to us from the tractor cab please stay safe out there.

One thing I just wanna remind you of is the reality of farm stress as we're out there and about on tractors and sometimes we may take some steps to quicken things up, but farm safety, farm stress, some things to think about as as the days grow along here if you're listening to us from the tractor cab,

We wish you well, we'll catch you next time here on Penn State's Agronomy Highlights podcast.