Jarrod O. Miller, Extension Agronomist, jarrod@udel.edu
Every spring has the same difficulties in not only getting seeds into the ground, but also protecting young plants from cold or moisture. The only thing that is the same every spring, is the difficulty in predicting the best time to plant. This year we saw a cool early April pushing back most corn planting until the 22nd, followed by high temperatures in early May.
Rainfall accumulations were fairly normal in April, with only 2-4 inches across Delaware over the entire month. Since then we have seen some fairly intense rainfall that has varied in accumulation across the state. Selecting a few weather stations from the Delaware Environmental Observing System (DEOS-http://www.deos.udel.edu/) reveals that statewide variability, as our research station in Georgetown has seen almost 16 inches of rain since April 1st compared to the Newark campus with ten. Most of the rain has come in the second half of May, but each storm has randomly saturated a different part of the state.
