Louisiana Soybeans Get in the Ground Early in ‘17

By Don Molino, The Voice of Louisiana Agriculture Radio Network

LSU AgCenter soybean specialist Dr. Ron Levy reports some early soybeans have already been planted at a few locations around Louisiana.

“We usually like to plant a some dates before we would actually recommend planting because how do you  determine how early to plant if you don’t have any some dates prior to the recommend planting dates?” said Levy.

While extension service personnel would have preferred to plant on March 1st that wasn’t possible this year due to wet weather.  So the soybean seed went into the ground two weeks later on March 15th.

“A lot of when you plant has an impact on yields,” says Levy. “Weather conditions play a part but daylight also plays a big part.  While days are getting longer now eventually they will get shorter again.”

Levy also suspects there will be a large crop of soybeans this year.  Great demand plus fairly good prices are causing more farmers to lean toward growing beans in 2017, even though those prices haven’t been quite a good now as they have been the past two to three years.

“But because of the big crop it may put a big demand on prices to be somewhat lower,” said Levy. “It all depends on what gets planted and how some other countries do with their yields.  So it would be very wise for producers to maybe lock in some prices before planting actually gets started in case there is a large number of acres that would cause prices to go lower come harvest.”