Harvest Strategies

When grading soybeans, some off-color seed coats can occur due to various issues such as viral diseases, weather, and ground damage.

This article was originally published in the September issue of Illinois Field & Bean. View the article here. Harvest has always been a crowd favorite. Whether it’s the humid heat of summer being replaced by crisp, autumn air, or the end of year holidays peeking out on the horizon, harvest tends to bring with it a sense of happy endings. But as any farmer knows, the work doesn’t stop even after the crop is out of the field. In fact, as farmers wrap up in the field and park the combine in the machine shed, there are several things [...]

As harvest nears full swing in the Midwest and farmers are watching the yield data flow in on their monitors, there is little guidance on how to ensure that all the hard work of the season is recording properly in the cab. Yield monitors are an important tool for gaining knowledge about an operation and can connect the dots when managing hybrids and fertility based on soil variability. The biggest area of confusion with setting up yield monitors and using them is that not all yield data is quality data. Oftentimes confusion surrounds why the data is not reflecting [...]

As we approach the later part of the growing season, we have the potential to see lodging in the soybean crop. Lodging is a function of two factors, genetics, and the environment. From a genetic standpoint, most varieties on the market are rated by their respective company for lodging and a significant amount of risk can be mitigated by paying attention to those ratings and management guidelines that come with the variety. The environment is obviously out of our control, for the most part. Ideal growing conditions in the vegetative stages will allow beans to grow tall and expand [...]

Reading through the history of the formation of grain and feed associations on the state and national level, you will notice a foundational block was to have a uniform system for grading and inspecting grain. Prior to establishing nationally agreed upon grades, it was a tumultuous time.  The importance to the grain trade of having fair and consistent procedures cannot be minimized.  This is true from the farm gate to the end user. The agency maintaining the official system is the Federal Grain Inspection Service (FGIS) which operates under USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS). FGIS maintains the official U.S. [...]

The November 9, 2020, USDA Harvest progress report indicates that, on average, the 18 states that are monitored are slightly ahead of the 5-year harvest average. Bringing the information closer to home, Illinois is about 96% (+/-) complete with harvest, with its 5-year average at 92%. For many Illinois soybean farmers, harvest has come and gone somewhat quickly. Soybean plants were able to mature relatively nicely, allowing for harvest to begin earlier than usual. The benefit of early harvest in soybeans is that it allows for corn fields to have additional time to dry while overall harvest operations can [...]

Soybean harvest has had its ups and downs this fall. But if I had to single out the biggest in-field challenge, it would be trying not to combine through the waterhemp escapes and spread weed seed all over the field. Waterhemp seed is very small and there is plenty of it per plant. And given the difficulty in trying to control it, you don’t want to make the problem worse at harvest. Waterhemp continues to be a growing problem in central Illinois. We typically find it emerging where rainwater flows through our fields and the seed is moving from [...]