I spoke too soon. Just when I mentioned that the winter had been rather mild with no subzero temps that were dangerously cold, as in 15 to 25 below actual temps, one of those polar vortexes broke loose and made a break for the Mexican border and actually gots that far south. Texas was in the spotlight as in their wisdom never spent any tax money on luxuries like snow plows. Well buckle up sister and see if you can survive a N Dakota, Minnesota, or Wisconsin type winter. Rick Perry was interviewed on the Joe Pags Radio Show on Saturday and he explained that they had diversified their energy sources among wind, solar, nuclear, natural gas, coal and a few minor ones. With their temps below freezing and sunshine hours running low the solar panels were not collecting many photons, the control gauges and flow valves were balky with the gas and four coal plants were off line. The source of the largest failure was wind power which dropped by 94% as the blades iced up. Adding to the problem their grid is independent of neighboring states so power could move from neighboring states. We were vising with a cousin in the Dallas area. He related how there was no power or water over a large area, making for 20 some fatalities related to exposure. There will be lawsuits resulting in these deaths.
Adding to the storm related problems were stories that the snow was not melting like snow should when exposed to a heat source. There are reports covering what compounds were contained in the snow. Keep your ears open. In the field of physics or meteorology solid water in the form of ice or snow will turn directly into gas in a process called sublimation.
One very knowledgeable agronomist in the U.S. which a bunch of us know, is Bufford Creech, the walking encyclopedia from Clermont, FL. Years ago in the army he ticked off his commanding officer and received a two year assignment at the pole where the temperatures regularly dropped to – 50. He said everyone stayed inside most of the time. They spent many hours reading any books they could scrounge.
Back to the Real World
The Iowa Power Show was held but due to the overall uncertainty of the even happening in person rather than virtual the crowds were down. Many of the large companies were absent as they are still playing cautious with allowing their employees interact with people in the outside world. The big chem, seed, and herbicide firms were absent rather than being anchor businesses.
Cropping Cautions
It has been interesting to watch the other stories appearing in the Farm News and other publications and the topics they are covering. One I enjoyed was the one discussing roots and root architecture, meaning how wide and deep of a root structure plants of a certain variety form based on their parentage. Varieties that yielded and tolerated conditions well in 2018 and 2009, both of which were very wet years with no stress and did not have to reach deep for moisture faced a much more hostile environment in 2020 over the southern 80% of the state. This past season people saw a 20 to 50 Bu/A difference in varieties when the two major influencing factors were corn following corn vs following soybeans or lack of rooting depth. This was a year where there was a minimal amount of leaf diseases compared to past years where leaf wetness hours were greater. For this factoid I have to give credit to a sharp Mr. Olson and his powers of observation and curiosity.
There are other ideas on how to maximize rooting volume and depth. At planting time any cavities formed by the planter openers and left by the closing wheels need to be closed. Letting then survive the planting process leaves gaps roots will not penetrate. The newer closing wheels which make sure the pulverized over the row and reman moist do a superior job of firming the soil plus closing the trench.
There are several products that will provide the plants with products that help the plants form more roots. Dr Yamada showed us how an in-furrow or early application of Co and Ni will cause the plants to increase root growth dramatically. At the new technology field day with Redox at their research site I saw an application of energized P plus several L-amino acids tripled root mass. On slow growing perennials it is very valuable. It may also be a good idea in IA during a dry season.
Weed Control Issues
In news that we were expecting to hear several years in the future and yet is not surprising that it was announced last week comes out of the weed labs in the state of Arkansas. The source is a weed scientist and the head of Palmer Amaranth is a Jason Norsworthy, He has visited the state in the past for field days and spoke at a Spraytec meeting four years ago, where Don Huber and Sue Martin also spoke. His predecessor at the Univ in the same role was Dr. Ford Balwin. Ford was a mainstay in recognizing problems before they occurred. Jason was telling us how they had done work in the greenhouse there they created dicamba resistant waterhemp in two short years using a selective breeding program. Thus the roll out and all the drift problems it created had been recognized by the major companies, but greed got in the way. The go-to product used in the Delta states and by many Midwest bean growers has been Liberty, also sold as Basta in S America for 15 years.
A year ago they spotted small plants that emerged within small area, suggesting they came from one mother plant. They gathered seed from those plants and treated with varying rates of Liberty in the greenhouse and found they were tolerating and surviving rates as high as 256 oz. of Liberty. The question now among all Pigweed species where there are both male and female plants. Plants of that species are hybridizing every generation, so any resistance can spread quickly across a field, county or area. The question still exists as to how long it will be before waterhemp also develops resistance to Glufosinate and spread here. Let’s hope that is not in the near future. The scholarly discussions about what needs to be done to combat weeds if and when resistance continues to occur include: moving into longer rotations with small grains; use highly competitive cover crops; cultivate with highly accurate sweeps; the use of smart sprayers with new non-selective herbicides; or wait for new modes of action herbicides to be developed.
New Accurate Sprayers and Cultivators
The new optically equipped see and spray herbicide sprayers from companies such as Blue River Technology now owned by Deere, one retrofitted by Amazone with optically sensor and multiple nozzles, and one called Weed-it have also shown up in magazine articles. One benefit of their use when actually operated is that the growers typically see a major reduction in herbicide used. Often a bean grower may broadcast spray an entire field when there are really too few to justify broadcast spraying but too many to let go to seed or make a landlord unhappy.
Amazone was talking about making kits that a person could add the sensors, nozzles and mechanics to the original bar and plumbing which is left to apply the broadcast product with. It will be interesting when we might see such sprayers available and priced fairly for our use. The question then will be what product could be used if a portion of the weeds have shown tolerance to all the commonly used families.
Einbock and another Austrian built cultivators are appearing in small numbers mostly among organic and specialty crop growers. Both use thin, wide, and very strong German made steel along with poly teeth that turn slightly faster than ground speed along with L shaped right and left hand sweeps to get to within 1” of the crop row. Add-on include rotating fingers of different strengthens of poly that turn faster than ground speed to take out seeds and grasses within the row. Both work great, but there are pricey. The growers using them wish they would have been available fifteen years ago. Dave Mortenson is a weed scientist at Penn State. His admonition is even if we don’t want to think about row crop cultivating anymore, the pure use of the same mode of action herbicides will have to be accompanied with new management or new products.
High Soybean Prices
Now with the opportunity to lock in perhaps the highest new crop soybean prices ever how many of you have written down your cropping plan which could add 5, 10 or 20 bushels to your last five year bean average? I have said before that producing high yield beans is akin to a great game of chess. Talk to those who have studied the process and learn from the yield masters to know what fertility program will optimize nutrient availability during the entire season, even up until the leaves turn ripe and yellow in color. Do you have a disease control program figured out that actually utilizes mineral based nutrition to keep the plants green and filling? Look in the Beck’s Seed 2020 research guide where the Mainstay application at 1 pint/A added 7.3 Bu/A for an affordable cost.
Do you understand hormone level management and how to maximize cytokine expression level to maximize branches? That is required to form more branches. There is still time to do your homework.
Check out a new website called contactorganics.com. It is from an Australian company that has developed a safe, fast acting non-elective herbicide that will kill problem weeds in specialty crops or on lawns, pastures, around farm yards or gardens where tough weeds cause problems. It is safe to soil microbes. The kill time on Canadian thistle for me was 4 hours of sunlight.
Bob Streit is an independent crop consultant and columnist for Farm News. He can be reached at (515) 709-0143 or www.CentralIowaAg.com.