date:May 21, 2013
companies.
Delayed planting causes yields to drop because of its effect on how plants develop. For corn, it means the crop will pollinate later in the summer, when hot, dry weather is more likely to cause damage.
That is why Michelle and John Stewart, owners of Spirit Farms in Sheridan, Ill., last week let loose four massive, green-and-yellow John Deere planters, each capable of covering 36 rows of corn. The Stewarts have traded up year-by-year recently, and the 36-row planters are the biggest