Week of June 9, 2025 Local, professional reports straight from the field,
from all regions serviced by Ag Partners.

Meet this week’s featured agronomists:

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WEST

Belle Plaine – Le Center – Le Sueur – Morristown – Traverse

Nitrate Sampling – A True Test of What’s Available to the Plant

We’ve been nitrate sampling throughout our territory for the past nine years and it continues to be a powerful tool for helping growers make informed nitrogen decisions. Every season brings new variables, and this year’s results are showing more “normal” trends compared to recent years.

So far, we’ve had consistent rainfall without extreme 5+ inch events, and May brought the heat needed to drive early mineralization and nitrogen conversion. These conditions have set us up for a solid reading of what’s actually available to the plant.

Keep in mind: 30 ppm is the benchmark to carry your crop through the critical nitrogen uptake phase, which begins to spike from V10 through R5.

If you haven’t tested yet, now is the time—your results could make the difference in optimizing your N plan.

Below is a great example of a field with three different nitrogen programs at play.

The grower began by applying 4,500 gallons of hog manure in mid-November. The next 40 acres were treated with 170 pounds of Fall NH₃ with N-Serve. Originally, the plan was to finish the remainder of the field in the Spring using spring-applied hog manure, but that was later switched to urea. After reviewing the nitrate sample results, the grower made the decision to apply additional nitrogen on areas with low PPM to ensure the crop isn’t shorted during peak Nitrogen uptake. – Erin

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EAST

Goodhue – Kenyon – Lake City – Pine Island – Wanamingo

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SOUTH

Elgin – Lewiston – Stewartville

It has been a tough week to get anything done in the fields.  Mother Nature is showing us who is the boss!!  Between spotty rain showers and wind, we haven’t gotten much post-spraying and side-dressing done.  

Remember to add 3 oz per acre of Interlock to the tank mix, to reduce driftable fines and to help get as much herbicide into the weeds as possible.  Be sure to continue to go back into fields and scout again, if there has been a large break in-between the time you scouted and sprayed, as the weeds have continued to grow.  I have seen many instances where we should have and did not add some Status into our tank mixes, to help knock down some of the larger weeds.  We get our best control when we are spraying weeds “pop can” height and smaller.

We have gotten a few nitrate tests back and the results are all over the board.  From extremely high to very low, all within the same field.  Get with your Ag Partners Agronomist or AYS Specialist and come up with a plan that fits your operation. – Zach

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WISCONSIN

Ellsworth

Field work is still going strong in Western Wisconsin right now. Corn spraying is getting wrapped up, side dressing is in full swing, and we are starting on the second pass of soybean herbicides. We often get asked this time of year, “My beans are still really clean, do we really have to do this second pass right now?”.  It is always better to be too early than too late on the second pass, especially when dealing with Waterhemp. If you are seeing 2-4” tall Waterhemp plants in your field, you need to get them taken care of soon because in another week the chances of killing them drop drastically.

Another common question/comment I hear this time of year is, “That pre didn’t do a very good job of holding back the Waterhemp or Giant Ragweed.”.  In some fields, the Giant Ragweed or Waterhemp pressure is so thick that it wouldn’t matter what product was used, a few weeds are still going to make it through and germinate. When I walk fields and see that everything is clean except for patches of Waterhemp, to me that is not an indication of a herbicide failure, but rather the weed-seed bank is so high in that area that a certain percentage were going to escape. These are the fields that need a second pass of herbicide within 28 days of the first pass, regardless of how clean the rest of the field looks. 

Pictured below are three different sized Waterhemp plants. Waterhemp loves heat and grows rapidly, therefore it is important to spray on the early side.  The picture on the far right will be difficult to take down if we are to wait much longer.  – Eric