The one-stop-shop to hearing everything you need to know this week about what is happening in your fields.

Walking into a trial of Voyagro that was a replication of the same trial at this location last year, I noticed the results to be identical to last year. This field is corn on corn on fairly light ground and harvest maps showed a five-bushel advantage in 2020. Voyagro is a biostimulant fertilizer that helps drive yield on highly managed corn with less than adequate rainfall. It should be applied to corn that has adequate tissue nitrogen and potassium and has experienced or has expected to experience moisture stress.

Rootworm beetle pressure has been extremely high this year. Some fields of corn on corn have experienced 100% silk clipping, pollination was affected in some of these fields. Now is the time to be scouting your corn on corn to come up with a solid insecticide plan for next year. Options such as in-furrow insecticide on SmartStax traits or insecticide application with tassel fungicide have worked well this year.

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Central
Owatonna – Morristown – Wanamingo – Kenyon

Erin Stackhouse

Fungicide, Fungicide, Fungicide!

You as a Producer most likely get sick of us talking about Tassel Fungicide. It is a huge investment in your corn crop every year. We utilize our AYS data to help us make the best choices possible when applying the fungicide by an aerial application or a ground application.

I think one of my favorite parts of precision agriculture is looking at data and putting it all together! I started to look at the field below that we have a multiple fungicide trial on for 2021. I am very excited to see what fall has to bring to us since two of the tassels sprayed parts on this farm started showing up very early! Typically, we don’t start to see these show up on the imagery until late August!

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South
Lewiston

Zach Thompson

Southeast Minnesota seems to be a garden spot this year!  Over the this past weekend we received another 2.5” of rainfall and missed the severe storms. Corn is at R3-R4 stage or the blister to milk stage.  Pollination looks to be very good considering what we had for rootworm beetles flying around during pollination.

Let`s remember the rootworm populations this fall and winter as we being to put a plan together for 2022.  Remember the pest always finds a way to out smart us!

Soybeans are at R5 so the bean in the pod is 1/8” at one of the four uppermost nodes.  We have had hardly any stress on the soybeans in the reproductive stage. We are starting to see some white mold show up in areas and with the last couple rains most of the beans are lodged.  The only insect pressure we are seeing is some Japanese beetles and white flies on the edges of the fields. Neither are near the threshold for treatment.  Another thing to keep in mind as we move into fall is the herbicide trait offerings for soybeans.  With how hard it was to kill weeds this summer we should be looking at different options.
Alfalfa – Some guys are going to be cutting 4^th crop in a week or less.  A couple things to remember as we end the haying season.  Remember to apply potash so the plant can store as many carbohydrates as it can going into winter to help the survivability.  Also I would encourage guys to be done harvesting alfalfa by September 15^th to give the plant time to re grow.  Start planning now as corn silage is going to be around that same time.  If you are going to terminate a field the fall is a great time to kill it and make a good seed bed for the corn crop.

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WWAS
Ellsworth

Chace Kinneman

This week we finally got some much needed rain!!! For some it might be to late but most was a blessing.

I’d like everyone to remember, or maybe better yet not to forget this picture of three corn plants in the same row early this spring. This is what those 3 different sized plants in the same row look like today. The plants themselves look like they caught up to each other but this is what they put on for ears, so they were definitely stressed out.

I also would like to talk a little about the corn rootworm beetles feeding on cob silks. This below is feeding on SmartStax corn in a continuous corn on corn rotation. Its definitely worth looking into putting an in-furrow insecticide with the starter in the spring if you’re seeing this amount of feeding.

Hope everyone has a good week!