Burndown Barriers of 2022
Spring is in the air! The grass is greening up, the songbirds are back serenading us, each day is getting longer, the daily temperature is sort of warming up, and snow is changing to rain (for the most part). But that is the problem, isn’t it? Temps are staying lower than average, and the precipitation does not seem to want to stay away for longer than a 48-hour stretch, at best.
Do not forget to assess fields for wireworm and white grubs before planting
Although some parts of Illinois have started to get beans in the ground, most of us are still waiting for soils to dry out and warm up. Something that should be on our radars in the week or two before planting are soilborne insect pests that may affect our soybeans.
Keep an eye out for red crown rot in Illinois soybeans in 2022
In 2018 I received some images on my cell phone. These images were of red crown rot, a soybean disease I had encountered while I was the field crop pathologist at the University of Delaware. The images clearly showed distinctive brick red, pinhead sized “balls” aggregated on the lower stems of the plant.
Considerations for insecticides in a post chlorpyrifos world
Chlorpyrifos is an insecticide in the organophosphate (OP) (IRAC-1B) group that has been in use since 1965. To put that in perspective, in 1965 Mike Ditka, Dick Butkus, Doug Atkins, and Gale Sayers were all starters for the Chicago Bears. This insecticide interferes with nerve signaling by preventing the breakdown of acetylcholine, an important neurotransmitter molecule, in insects. Products with this chemistry (e.g., Cobalt, Lorsban, Stallion, numerous others) were used widely in food and grain crops due to the broad-spectrum insecticidal activity and highly translaminar activity of the chemical in plants. Unfortunately, some of the properties that made this [...]
SCN in Soybeans: Do I have an issue?
As I drove around Southern IL this summer, I noticed a lot of fields that have areas in them that were showing the symptomology of Soybean Cyst Nematode (SCN). Often these spots are stunted, yellow and just generally not in good health. Now, there are a lot of reasons for soybeans to show this symptomology, and very likely not every one of these spots were SCN, but SCN counts have been on the rise over the last few years and now is a great time to be testing for the pest. SCN, like all nematode species, is an unsegmented [...]
Use Your Toolbox to Control White Mold Infections
As the growing season progresses and we near harvest, Illinois soybean growers often see increased disease symptomology in their fields. They may wonder what can be done to combat diseases once symptoms appear, but with some pathogens the infection occurs many weeks prior to the onset of visible signs of disease. Once the infection is apparent, it is often too late for effective control. The best-known illustration of this is Sudden Death Syndrome (SDS), but white mold is another example. Figure 1 shows very early symptoms of the disease appearing in the upper canopy. Although it may be too [...]
Sudden Death Management Considerations for Soybeans
This year continues to challenge what soybean producers consider to be “normal.” I met with one grower recently who described the month of June as polarized. He stated that on his farm, he went from 5-inches behind on monthly rain fall to 5-inches over in a period of 10 days. If that wasn’t enough rain, then the 18 inches we received on our farm in July certainly was. Yes, you did just read “enough,” “rain,” and “July” in the same sentence. Photo: Sudden Death Syndrome Foliar Symptoms. Photo Credit - Crop Protection Network I have been concerned about one [...]
Cover Crops and Herbicides
I think one of the most overlooked problems with farmers trying cover crops is not paying enough attention to the herbicide program that was used in the cash crop before the cover crop was planted. We, as farmers, spend a great deal of money to control weeds in our cash crop fields. Over the last several years, many “hard” to control weeds like waterhemp and resistant marestail have pushed many of us to use herbicides that have more residual activity or we have to spray “late” rescue treatments to control late escaping weeds. These late applications or more persistent [...]
Cultural Change for Row Spacing: Wide vs. Narrow
There is no right way to farm, however, there have been many methods of farming that have been tried and tested. When thinking about weed control, our industry once relied heavily on mechanical control, which eventually lead to major erosion and environmental impact. When glyphosate-tolerant soybeans were introduced to the market, they allowed for less tillage, reducing environmental impact. Over the past 10 years, chemical controls alone have given Mother Nature the opportunity to evolve weed biology. In my areas, mechanical control has started to be reintroduced to the acre, which also reintroduced its environmental impact. It’s now time [...]
