The Early Bean Gets The Bushels: Brown Pushes Planting Envelope

MARY HIGHTOWER

SUCCESS, ARKANSAS

Back in 2022, people wondered why Zack Brown was planting soybeans in March when his neighbors in northeast Arkansas planted in mid-April.

“It’s one of those things I’ve heard from since I've been out of school is the earlier you can plant beans the better,” said Brown, who graduated from the University of Arkansas in 2012 with a degree in agriculture business, marketing and management, with the idea he wouldn’t become a farmer.

“When I did it people laughed,” Brown said. However, Brown had the last laugh when he cut more than 90 bushels per acre in that year’s Grow for the Green soybean yield contest.

“I won my region with the March 17th beans,” he said.

Planting time depends on several factors such as soil temperature, field condition and the type of soybean. Soybeans have 13 maturity groups, with triple zero being the earliest maturing. Higher numbers are later maturing. In Arkansas, the soybeans maturities tend to be Maturity Group III to Group V.

Typically, soybean planting in south Arkansas starts in early April, with northern Arkansas being later, around late April.

After planting corn last year, Brown, who grows Maturity Group IV beans, pushed the early envelope again this year, getting his first seeds in the ground in late February. The result was pods setting in May.

“Not many people laughed at me this year,” Brown said.

Working in Brown’s favor was a dry fall that enabled quick work on field prep and a warm spring with well-time rain.

Stewart Runsick, Clay County extension staff chair for the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture, said the fields’ precocious pod set is just part of a very unusual year.

“They were planted in February —  which is way outside of our recommended planting date — but they survived being frosted on and are looking good now,” Runsick said. “It’s just been an unusual year as everything is planted early in our area, at least two weeks ahead of normal.”

Runsick said that while he’d never seen soybean planted this early and it has become a, “trend has been to plant earlier.

“Used to be everyone planted rice in April and beans in May or June,” Runsick said. “Now they plant corn, rice and beans all at the same time in late March and early April. It seems the temperatures are warmer earlier in the year. The yield seems to be better when planted early, but there is more risk associated with early planted beans.”

Brown said he knew the risks.

“It’s all weather-dependent. It’s tough to go out there when it’s 35 to 40-degree weather and I have no clue what the ground temperature has been on any of my early plantings,” Brown said.

“There wasn’t going to be an in-between,” he said. “Either it was going to work and I’m going to love it, or it’s not going to work and I’m going to be doing this all over again.”

Making converts

Brown’s yields have turned skeptics into early planters.

“I got several neighbors who got in there in March and planted a few beans, because they petty much told me ‘Dadgummit, I can’t just sit back and watch you do it all, I gotta try it too!’” Brown said. “Our little area ended up with a whole lot of soybeans planted pretty early.”

After a bit of cajoling over the last few years, a friend of Brown’s who also farms soybeans, finally decided to take the early route this year.

Brown said his friend who planted in March sent a picture of his beans and said, ‘I should have listened to you and planted more.”

Resilient beans

Jeremy Ross, extension soybean agronomist for the Division of Agriculture, said damage from frost and very wet weather are just some of the risks farmers run in planting beans early.

According to the National Weather Service, based on 1991-2020 normals, the earliest last average freeze of the spring happens before March 15 in parts of southwest and southeastern Arkansas. Where Brown is farming, the typical last average freeze of spring is March 27 and April 1 and the last frost is April 6.

However, if cold and wet get your crop, “you’ve still got plenty of time to come back in and replant,” Ross said. He cited fields planted by Matt Miles of Desha County in southeastern Arkansas. Miles is known across the Mid-South for his record-breaking soybean yields. “They went through two frost events and they still survived and they look really good right now.

“I think soybeans are probably a little more resilient than we originally thought,” he said.  ∆

MARY HIGHTOWER: University of Arkasas