By Darren Hefty

2011 was sure a wild year of floods, drought, excessive heat, early frost and just about every other extreme you can throw in there.  One of the casualties you may not have heard about is seed corn supply.

Seed corn fields are not immune to weather issues.  In fact, they are significantly less able to handle them than your regular field corn.  For that reason, seed corn is grown in areas with milder climates, often under irrigation, and it commonly receives much more management than other fields.  This year, all that careful attention couldn’t overcome the heat at pollination and other weather-related issues.

So how much is seed corn supply down?  It varies by company and by maturity.  Most independent estimates show U.S. seed corn production is down by nearly 20%.  The other good indication of poor production in our country is how much seed corn production is being grown in countries like Argentina and Chile.  Seed companies like DeKalb and Pioneer have a good amount of production being done in South America.  Since this is way more expensive than simply raising the needed seed here in the states, you know they are short of what they project sales will be.

Adding to the tightness of supply will be the timing of the South American seed harvest and its delivery back to the U.S.  Early maturities often have a better chance of returning here in time for planting.  Fuller-season hybrids are tougher to get back in time.  Add to this the dry conditions in a sizable portion of our country this fall, and you have the table set for at least a timely spring planting here, meaning it could be hard to get South American production here in time.

Solutions:

  • Buy seed early.  This puts you higher up on the priority list when seed comes in.
  • Take seed as early as you can even if it’s only part of your total order.
  • Communicate with your seed dealer all the way through the process.  If you just send in a check and don’t specify what you want or when you want it, there’s a better chance of problems.
  • Have everything else that you control taken care of.  Get your fertilizer ready.  Look over your equipment one more time.  Apply your pre-emerge herbicides.  If seed potentially could slow you up, make sure nothing else does, and it won’t be nearly as big of a deal.