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Most producers have had the needed dry weather this fall to get livestock manure applied to fields. However, a wetter than normal corn crop and full elevators, did delay corn harvest longer than normal in some areas. For livestock producers waiting on frozen ground to apply manure, here are some things to keep in mind. Frozen ground would be soil that you cannot inject the manure into or cannot conduct tillage within 24 hours to incorporate the manure.

Because of differences in the growing season for corn across Ohio, practitioners need a method of accurately rating crop’s maturity to inform crop management decisions for adequate yield, quality, and grain moisture at harvest. For this reason, we rate hybrid maturity based on “Growing Degree Days” (GDD), or heat units. Because a corn hybrid requires a specific number of GDD to reach maturity—a number that is independent of the crop’s total number of growing calendar days—the GDD method is accurate and should be considered by today’s practitioners.