Winter Crop Assessment

Some customers seem to have rougher looking stands of fall crops this spring vs normal. The worst fields seem to be the ones seeded late August. Normally that is not the case as we have had our best crops seeded Aug 25th, but I think because of the warm October, fall crops grew much bigger than normal. It seems like the 3-4-5 leaf stage going into winter was the best this past season.

You want to see new white roots and a little bit of green when you cut into the crown to show that there is still life.
One field I looked at had a lot of background nitrogen and it grew a lot last fall and was seeded early, another the rows where the combine had dropped straw was much slower or hurt more and Balir also noted the soil was cooler. Another field had been seeded early August, and grazed in the fall and spring and most areas looked good, but it looks like some snow iced over during a melt and hurt some areas on sidehills and of course the low spots where water sat too long.