North Mississippi Harvest Update

The 2021 growing season started off on a promising note in North Mississippi. Farmers in this area are accustomed to planting between raindrops, according to NK^® Seeds sales representative J.P. Bowlin, who supports farmers throughout northern Mississippi and Alabama (essentially everywhere north of Hwy. 82). So this year, when they caught a good window of dry weather and farmers got a lot of corn planted, Mississippi farmers had every reason to be optimistic — until a wet and tumultuous June.

“North Mississippi got hit really hard in June with widespread flooding and a lot of rain between two hurricanes,” Bowlin recounts. “At that point, we had corn that was pollinated and basically in the home stretch — but then weather became a major issue for us, and many farmers in this area lost their entire corn, soybeans, rice and cotton crops. We lost almost all of it.”

— J.P. Bowlin, NK Seeds sales representative

The season was less hectic further south, although Bowlin said harvest was significantly behind schedule when The Amplifier caught up with him in early October. “We have got a lot of the corn crop out, but we still have a fair amount of corn left to go,” Bowlin reported on Oct. 5. “As you move into East Mississippi and North Alabama, we’ve started to cut soybeans but we haven’t picked any cotton yet. We’re about a month behind where we should be.”

Looking Ahead to 2022

Despite a wet and challenging 2021, Bowlin says Mississippi farmers have many reasons to be confident in a bright future — and in NK hybrids and varieties. He recommends his farmer-customers look at three standout products:

“NK1677 is a product that’s doing a lot for us this season,” Bowlin states. “It was planted on some large-scale acres and everybody I know who planted it had a good experience with it and plans to plant more next year — so we have a good bit of momentum going with that hybrid. As for soybeans, S49-F5X has been one of our biggest sellers the past couple of years, and S44-C7X has gained massive numbers of acres and shown positive yield results as well. These soybeans just fit so many acres.”

These products were put to the test this year, and Bowlin says they’ve really made a difference. “If you look at corn with stress tolerance in a year like this one, with excessive rainfall, you see that it withstands weather in the field, and you know that it’s a hybrid that doesn’t deteriorate quickly after it’s matured and waiting for the combine.”

Bowlin reported that the excessive moisture was also causing delays at the elevator. “In years like this, where the moisture stays high and we can’t get into the field to cut, we experience issues with the elevators,” he says. “Even though it’s been drawn to cut, the moisture is not low enough for us to cut it or to deliver to the elevator, since they won’t take any corn that’s over 15% moisture. That’s a big positive for NK1677 because it will actually stay in the field, while a lot of hybrids have lodging issues and deteriorate.”