Agronomy: 2016: Another Year of Learning
In Northern Illinois we have had another interesting year with soybeans. We have had some great soybeans, some good soybeans and some fields that were just beans. Over the next few months we will try to dig in and see what made our great soybeans great and what caused some of our fields to just be beans. There are, however, a few things on the surface that we have already learned. We had pockets of an issue that we have not paid enough attention to in the past that caught us a little by surprise. Sudden Death Syndrome (SDS) [...]
Agronomy: A Happy Soybean is a Healthy Soybean
What makes a healthy soybean plant? It’s about what you both see and don’t see. When you want to produce a high-yield crop, pay close attention to plant health. When I think about soybean health I sit back and think about my own health. A lot of things go into my staying healthy, just as a lot of things go into keeping our soybeans healthy. When I think of keeping a young child healthy I think about vaccinations helping ward off diseases that we know can be a problem. I compare that to when we treat soybeans. We put [...]
Agronomy: Pay Attention to the Details
To make sure your crop is getting enough nutrients, use tissue testing to confirm. When we think about providing nutrients to our crops, most times we think about the macronutrients we apply and what we remove from fields in the grain. When we are managing our soybeans throughout the season, however, we need to understand what the soybean plant actually needs—not only to produce the seed that we will harvest, but also to complete its lifecycle. For example, 100 bushels of soybeans will remove in the seed 380# N, 84# P2O5 and 130# K20. The crop however will need [...]
Agronomy: There’s an App for That – Predicting Soybean Replant
It seems these days there is an app for about anything you can think of. Generally, in the agriculture world I have a hard time finding apps that are actually useful. There are a few for weather, but other than that I do not use too many apps and my phone is usually for communication purposes. However, I have been made aware of a new app with a real purpose that is available. The Bean Cam app for either iPhone or Android is free and lets you use the camera on your phone to check bean stands. It will allow [...]
Agronomy: Weeds – What’s Your Weakness?
When looking for a soybean residual herbicide program, I have yet to find one that is a silver bullet for every weed across the board. In my experience, it is harder to select a broad-spectrum soybean herbicide than a broad-spectrum corn herbicide. For a soybean weed control program to work, you have to know what you are fighting against. In a corn weed control program, you can take a more general approach and get by. You need to get your boots dirty and figure out what weeds you have—and also figure out if the tool you used works. At this [...]
Agronomy: Wondering about Profitability? Let’s Run the Numbers
We all know that this year is going to be a year of managing risk and production costs. We always face a risk when farming, as we rely on our weather to bless us with a crop to harvest. However, this year we are also carrying a heavy burden of financial risk as well. With +/-$9 soybeans and what seems like higher input costs, every decision we make in our operations is a risk. With risk there is also reward and we need to figure out what our risk management plan is before our first seed hits the soil. I [...]
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