Change to spring-like temperaturesmeans that planting season is soon

By Chris Cherry, president of the Indiana Corn Growers Association

The weather this week has been a quick reminder that spring is near. The 40-degree mornings and 70-degree afternoons have been a great way to finish preparations for the spring planting season that is coming soon.

I’m sure that there will be anhydrous going on before the end of the week. We had a great opportunity to get our wheat top dressed, and it looks like it is off to a good start. This week we have finished prepping the equipment, cleaning it one last time, and I’ve been working in my seed warehouse sorting seed for deliveries.

Earlier this month, several directors from the ICGA board as well as directors from the Indiana Corn Marketing Council and the Indiana Soybean Alliance spent four days in Denver, Colo., at the 2025 Commodity Classic. On March 1, we began with Corn Congress going over resolutions to the NCGA policy book. These resolutions are continuously studied by the state’s membership with the desire to have guard rails that help the NCGA board functions.

The ICGA and ICMC board delegates that represented Indiana included Tim Gauck, Tyler Everett, Jerry Osterholt, Susan Brocksmith and me. Joe Tuholski was a Corn Congress alternate. We spent several hours working together on the resolutions that we were presented during Corn Congress.

On March 2, we had the opportunity to listen to Brooke Rollins, the new USDA Secretary in the new administration. Rollins spoke for 35 minutes about the way the new administration is going to fight for agriculture. We were told that the contracts for the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) and the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) were going to be fulfilled. Many farmers felt some relief upon hearing this news.

The USDA is also going to be administering ECAP program in March through the FSA. ECAP stands for Emergency Commodity Assistance Program, and this program will be paid based on the producer prints from acreage reporting time last July. This way the acres in the program match up with the crops planted in 2024.

The next 60 days may offer anxiety as we prepare to plant the 2025 crop. Instability in crop markets are due, in part, to the threat of tariffs or the actual tariffs in some cases. The spring prices for crop insurance were set in February with corn being $4.70 and the spring soybean price $10.54 per bushel.

March has been mostly unkind. Prices continue to drop as I am writing this column. The uncertainty in the market is raising many questions. Do we continue to plant our normal rotations? Do we move our cropping plans one way or the other? Have the seed companies planned for enough supply to weather these shifts?

Wow…these are the stresses of being a farmer. My father-in-law would often say that two of his daughters married “professional gamblers” and that often feels like the truth. The memory of his one-liners gets me through many days.

If we act together, though, then we can promote the farm policies that may help us in the future. Your membership, and the membership of your neighbors, is so important to how we do business on your behalf. We go to the Indiana Statehouse, Washington, D.C., and meetings around the state. We do this work, so you can concentrate on the work on your farm.