The one-stop-shop to hearing everything you need to know about what is happening in your fields this week.
This week’s featured agronomists are:
Adam Steffel – Belle Plaine
Gregg Gustine – Pine Island
Chad Wiersma – Morristown
Kenny Loftus – Lewiston
Chace Kinneman – Ellsworth
Scroll down to hear from your local agronomist.
WEST
Belle Plaine – Le Center – Le Sueur
Adam Steffel
As the spraying season wraps up in our area, we are seeing drought stress starting to affect our crops. Corn plants have started to protect themselves by curling their leaves to prevent transpiration. Transpiration is how the plant breathes and cools itself. Under hot and/or dry conditions, the corn leaves will curl to try and reduce the rate of moisture loss. With the shortage of moisture, it is even more important to make sure you have good weed control. If weeds are present, they compete for needed moisture and nutrients. Even if you have everything sprayed already, it will be important to keep an eye on the fields to make sure you have a good kill and no weeds are coming back. If you have any questions on weed control or respray options, please contact your local Ag Partners agronomist.
EAST
Pine Island – Cannon Falls – Goodhue – Lake City
Gregg Gustine
Where Did The Weevils Go?
Alfalfa weevil populations were higher than normal in areas all across our trade territory this spring. Weevils favor cool conditions, so this spring was ideal for them. Larval feeding in some fields caused defoliation of up to 50 percent, greatly affecting yield. Now the sweep nets are not showing many weevils. The insects have now entered the pupal stage of their lifecycle and will hatch as adults in one to two weeks. These adults will enter a dormancy stage for most of the summer then overwinter as adults. With higher numbers hatching as adults it is very possible we could have the same problem next spring if weather conditions are right. Remember to keep an eye on your alfalfa fields next May.
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CENTRAL
Morristown – Wanamingo – Kenyon
Chad Wiersma
In our area most of the spraying is wrapping up. Sidedress and topdress applications are complete and Y dropping is well on its way. Soybeans seem to finally be getting their feet underneath them. Most of the corn is in V7-V9 stages and soybeans are V3-V5. The way it looks we will have a couple week break before we start up fungicide applications in the second half of July. With the late start to the season, it seems most of our energy was spent on getting the crop in the ground and then protecting it from weed pressure.
As we wrap up that part of the season I am starting to think about how we will protect yield from the environmental stresses as well as disease pressure. With commodity prices and what looks overall to be a mostly healthy crop (could use a little rain in some areas), I think we also have a great opportunity to add some yield potential to this crop. As we prepare for those tassels and R3 soybean applications, my challenge is to ask, what’s one new or additional thing we can do to increase yield and bring a ROI to your operation? Fungicide, insecticide, biological, stress mitigation, and micronutrients is a great place to start. Let’s make hay when the sun shines.
SOUTH
Elgin – Lewiston – Stewartville
Kenny Loftus
We are finishing up with side dress nitrogen on corn, post emerge spraying corn, and have a really good start on post emerge spraying soybeans- meaning the heavy workload is nearly complete. Locally we have over 45 trials implemented into side dress nitrogen. The standard procedure to all these trials is to add 20 lbs. of nitrogen and remove 20 lbs. of nitrogen from the grower’s normal nitrogen rate. These multiple rates are replicated and have randomized locations within each trial. Below is an example of what a trial looks like. Once harvest is complete, we will take all hybrids and analyze them to see what the “right” rate of nitrogen for a specific hybrid. This winter will be exciting to look at the data and to continue to learn along side the grower.
WWAS
Ellsworth
Chase Kinnemann
As we approach the 4th of July we have a lot going on at WWAS. Corn spray is pretty much wrapped up, but 2nd pass bean spray is well underway. The Sonic this year has done a great job but there are plenty of little weeds poking through, so it’s time to spray.
2nd crop hay is also being mowed down and depending on your geography the weevils are plentiful. Therefore, make sure you have us come out and sweep your fields to see where yourbug pressure are at.
Due to the heat we have been experiencing, we’ve had a few calls about the Enlist and Sequence herbicides speckling the beans. This is expected and will not harm the soybean plant. Remember crop response means dead weeds, especially if you have Giant Ragweed and/or Waterhemp- which is what we are after.
Hope everyone has a safe and fun 4th of July!
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| Speckled soybeans and curling waterhemp from the last herbicide application | There is just something so satisfying seeing waterhemp die |
