Corn Planting Date Study

Key Points

Objective: To evaluate various corn planting dates throughout the spring to determine the optimum planting date.
Yield Increase: Through this study, ideal planting dates led to yield advantages up to 63.8 Bu/A.
Potential Losses: Lower-performing planting dates led to economic losses over $260/A in comparison to higher-performing planting dates.
Ideal Time to Plant: The third week in April has typically led to the highest yields each year at the PTI Farm, assuming conditions are favorable.

If you plant in the mud, your crop could be a dud!

When is the right time to plant corn? Each year, growers try to guess the over-under of planting too early or too late. We wanted to take a closer look at what type of risk you really may be taking on depending on when you plant.

We’ve put it to the test by planting across multiple weeks over the span of several years and then calculated the data for you to utilize on your own farm.

Over the seven-year time-period from 2018-2024, the ideal planting window for corn has been the 3rd week of April through 1st week of May. Highest yield losses have been ultra-early planting dates (March 1st to 2nd week of April) with losses of -36 Bu/A to -38 Bu/A, as well as June plantings with losses of near 70 Bu/A.

What we found proved that, while there is a potential gain in earlier planting dates, it isn’t worth trying to rush the planting of corn by getting it in the ground too early. It is better practice to wait for the right planting conditions in this ideal window.