Through decades of practice, most skills can be honed to a precise science, with weather forecasting as one exception. Mother Nature has been around longer than any meteorology experts or forecasting technology, and she seems to enjoy the ability to keep growers guessing and preparing their Plan B.
Predictive modeling, ocean temperatures and even stages of the moon...for centuries, meteorologists — whether professionally trained or of the armchair variety — have been using tools of all levels of sophistication to forecast the weather. The different approaches and often conflicting forecasts, even today, illustrate that weather is anything but an exact science.
It's one more reason that growers have to be prepared for the unexpected.
Growers, in areas where frost extended more than a foot into the soil and there was heavy snowfall throughout the winter, probably got a late start heading to the fields. With time at a premium in a normal year, they might have chosen to forego a pre-plant or pre-emergence herbicide application. With the advancements in today's herbicide technology, that doesn't mean they have to sacrifice weed control. There are postemerge products such as Capreno herbicide that can be applied to corn through the V5 growth stage, holding grass and broadleaf weeds back until canopy.
For growers in a region that didn't have extreme cold or what seemed like a winter of endless snow, their spring might have been more normal. They got into the field early enough to prep the soil and apply a pre-plant or pre-emergence herbicide, which allowed planting to wrap up during the optimum timeframe.
That doesn't mean the season will continue to be normal. Should the summer take a turn for the drier, as some experts suggest, growers might need to re-evaluate their weed management. Depending on what they applied as a pre-emergence herbicide, that residual control might be lost. Some herbicides have residual control that can hold back weeds. Bayer’s example is Corvus herbicide as being a product that can reactivate after a dry spell with just a half-inch of rain.