Ag Partners Agronomic Insights
 Kati DanielsonLe Sueur |
 Zach HinschWanamingo |
 Joel JohanningmeierStewartville |
Brady Coulson |
WEST
It’s that time of year again- corn fungicide is starting up! There has been a lot of discussion about whether to apply fungicide or not. We all know that we are having an abnormal season with still trying to get the post emerge pass on soybeans, uneven emergence, and less than pleasant commodity prices. However, fungicide is key to protecting your plant health and ROI. Fungal diseases thrive in these wet conditions, and we will want to prevent any onset. Thus, giving our crops the best chance they have by continuing to control the variables that we can.
Miravis Neo has been a great product to use for both corn and soybean fungicide. Studies have shown that it has a broad spectrum of fungal diseases such as Northern & Southern Corn Leaf Blight, Common Rust, Grey Leaf Spot, Tar Spot, and others. It has long-lasting protection on your corn plants, as well as helping improve your plant health. – Kati
 |
 |
Hopefully we will be able to finally finish up soybean post herbicide applications this week. It’s been a battle getting some of these fields sprayed as they’ve been too wet for 3+ weeks now. As we wrap that up, fungicide applications have already begun. The helicopters are spraying tassel fungicide in full swing, and we are just getting started on soybean fungicide.
Pictured below is a drone image taken from a grower’s soybean field in the area. This field is all the same seed variety. The border of the field and a few passes along the gravel road was sprayed with 13.7oz of Miravis Neo on July 10th when the soybeans were at R1. The drone image was taken 5 days after application on July 15th. You can see clearly see where the crop was sprayed and where the sprayer had run out part way down the field. This particular field has a history of white mold and the grower plans to spray the WHOLE field with Miravis Neo when the soybeans reach R3. Data has shown 2 pass fungicide helps protect against white mold. Let’s not leave bushels out in the field and talk to your Ag Partners Agronomist about a fungicide application today. – Zach
SOUTH
Don’t Give Up Yet!
Over the past few weeks, I have been working through the question of what to do with our nitrogen plan now that we have been delayed in getting our sidedress nitrogen application on some of these fields. Do we skip it? Do we add more? Add less? All valid questions, but for the most part farmers stayed the course of the original plan and are making the applications, just a little later than planned. Much of the thought process was that we are able to mineralize more N this year due to the moisture, but we needed to keep that in the shallow root zone that we have this year. We just needed the additional N to bridge that gap for the roots to begin picking up what it needs. As to the lateness of the application, about 20% of the nitrogen gets taken up after tassel so there is still time to utilize what was applied. Likely a good thing to have this available nitrogen late in the season within the rooting zone as much of the earlier application has moved deeper in the profile. Observations of the fields so far seem to be a visual difference within 3-4 days of application.
Now that we have nursed this crop along to tassel, do we have the potential to have a good crop? Overall, we have a range of great looking areas all the way to some really tough areas… and many times all within the same field. On average, I think there is some pretty good potential in the region, but we have to take care of it for the rest of the season. Obvious challenge this year has been the amount of rainfall. I pulled the AYS information in the chart below to see the yield impact of rainfall amount during June for the last 5 years. The higher amounts we have seen this year compare to years 2019 and 2020. You can see by the chart that those years we generally kept yields similar to “normal” rainfall with the higher amounts. There was a bit of a drop off when you got above 12 inches which then likely made excess rainfall the limiting factor.
So with the potential still there, what’s next to protect? Two of the next critical yield determining factors are pollination and a longer grain fill period. Plant health is key to helping during these periods and a fungicide is the best protector of plant health. You may also want to consider adding a micronutrient package to the fungicide application as well. Correcting some of these deficiencies at this time can have a very positive impact on yield.
If you have concerns about where and when to make these applications, work with your agronomist and AYS Specialist to develop a plant health plan tailored to where it could be most profitable. We have several tools that can help in this conversation including Response to Fungicide ratings for hybrids, satellite imagery to help determine the current health of the field, and an internal tar spot tracker to determine areas of current infection. These along with other tools can help you develop a specialized plan for your operation. – Joel
WISCONSIN
Planning for next year’s corn trait packages starts now. In Wisconsin, the team has been busy hanging corn rootworm beetle sticky traps in cornfields to help forecast pressure for the 2025 growing season. Our Dekalb Technical Agronomist, Sammie Brantner, put together a short power point with this year’s forecast, as well as the numbers we’ve been seeing on our own traps from ’22 and ’23. – Brady
 |
 |
 |
 |