Jarrod O. Miller, Extension Agronomist, jarrod@udel.edu
Figure 1. The first soybeans of the year emerge at the Carvel Research Center on April 26th.
Last year the Delaware Soybean Board sponsored a project where we planted soybeans two weeks apart from (May 1st, May 15th, and June 1st), but we observed no yield differences. For the second year of this project we planted April 12th and finally had emergence 14 days later on April 26th (Figure 1). The second planting was done on April 28th, and the third planting will be two weeks from now. While we expect the second and third plantings to emerge earlier, it will also be interesting to see how summer drought or other stresses influence soybean yields based on planting dates.