The 2021 growing season is shaping up and several challenges have already been imposed by nature. Lack of heat, shortages or excesses in moisture, late frosts, and now an excess in temperatures, the entire season seems to be one high wire tightrope walk where each step and each week seems to create new challenges for the crops and people trying to grow them. While about two thirds of the crop growing Midwestern states are in some stage of dry and getting drier, the growers in the other third are suffering from too much rain and muddy conditions, enough that some fields have been too wet and muddy to even drive into. For them the optimum planting window has closed and passed them by.
At least we now see a sizeable percent of the people and life return to normal. For farmers things were not altered as much as they recognized the fraudulent nature of the so called ‘pandemic’. It effects though are real in that: certain electric components for machinery and vehicles are not available; a number of crop protection products are now short in supply; worker shortages exist in food processing, shipping, and the transportation industries; and help wanted ads are being posted in nearly every store one enters as people don’t seem to want to work anymore.
As to fraudulent things. Is everyone following the revelations about the nefarious actions of the infamous Dr Tony Fauci, who was at the center of the worldwide economic shutdown? The information released thru a Freedom of Information request lists many pages of emails showing without a shadow of a doubt that he and his colleagues at the CDC, WHO and state health agencies took every measure possible to frighten the populace in every country, seeking to grab government dollars and power over them. This was done on the behalf of the CCP. A summary of the speech by General Chi from over twenty years ago is worth reading and at the center of the entire episode, and why they wanted president #45 gone. He was an impediment to Chinese efforts to grow their country’s land base. The saying Chi used was ‘One mountain cannot have two tigers.
The danger in this revelation is that if other damaged countries seek to be paid damages for their economic losses, many of our officials were partially responsible. Dr Francis Boyle, Univ of Illinois International Law professor was correct from day 1 when he did the Alex Jones interview and told where the virus was made and who funded this work.
Our Late Frost
The frost seen last week was a complete surprise for most of the farmers that were touched by it. They say it was the third largest late May freeze seen in the Midwest since weather records have been kept, which is somewhere in the 1870s. As an interesting sidenote one Ag researcher who is from Alexander, IA told me about two months ago that we would see a major late May frost this year. He did not know how far south it would go. The ISU extension agronomist who looked at fields across N Central IA in an area from about Charles City to O’Brien Co described it as a freckle frost in that the damage was very patchy and irregular among corn and beans. The worst fields were those planted in heavy residue, no-till fields. She theorizes that the residue cover prevented radiative heat being released from the soil to warm the surrounding plants during the early morning hours. So now that 7 days have elapsed since the frost it is more apparent as to which plants are dead and which ones survived. Replanting soybeans makes sense at this date as they are not always yield penalized from being planted late. What we learned in the wet 1991 delayed planting year is that planting corn after June 5 th along Hwy 3 and north was often a losing exercise.
The best and only way to scout damaged fields is with a visual inspection to check out the different elevations within each field. Cold air acts like a liquid so will flow into the low spots to damage the plants. People who were up early enough tell of the cold air moving like a fog flowing into the low areas. As of Friday, most of the corn plants showed 3 to 4 inches of regrowth and should recover. If they had not regrown that much they were not likely to be productive. The best approach is likely to procure the replant seed, load a 6-8-12 row mounted planter and replant the dead areas. As to running a field cultivator, that could be an option depending on the amount of residue.
The field inspection of soybeans should be similar in that regrowth of the new bud tissue should be visible. If, after a week, these new buds are not expanding, the plants’ growing points must have been killed. I know of farms where all of the no-tilled beans were killed while tilled fields a few feet away escaped damage.
When choosing your replant variety pick one of a normal mid maturity that has an increased ability to branch. Narrow the row width if possible and increase the seed population.
Moisture Use by the Plants
Much of northern Iowa used to be marshy or swampy ground. Peat was actually in many of those low spots and is actually difficult to manage as to weed control and being more susceptible to late and early frost problems. During dry years the extra moisture held in the soil reservoir, providing those extra inches of moisture needed by the crops. Because that soil was known to hold 2.0 -2.2” of water per foot and corn roots typically were considered to penetrate to 60”, growers on the heavier soils knew their soil held 10 to 11” of total moisture. The first 5 to 5.5” were readily extracted easily and took the soil down to 50% of field capacity. The next 3” were plant extractable taking it down to 20%. Below 20% it required oven drying to extract the final 2”. The wilting would begin to appear at the 50% range. At 20% they would succumb to the lack of moisture or if lucky and the soil was porous enough, grow as deep as 20’.
This means that as the top inches of soil, where much of the applied fertilizers are held, grow progressively drier, the movement of those minerals into the roots of the plants decreases. Any additional nutrition must be supplied either thru a Y-drop or via a foliar application. In soybeans the belief is that the stem’s vascular system is not large or efficient enough to conduct the needed nutrition thru to the leaves.
The Corn Crop
The corn in the state generally reached the V3 to V5 growth stages this past week. A few of the very early fields are nearing row closure. With the expected heat the plants will grow as fast as their moisture reserves allows. The projected heat of the next two weeks has growers reviewing their cropping program and seeing if any other applied product could help their plants tolerate the heat and dryness better. We know that the improved soil biology, Protect+, Respite, and Mainstay Si are products that are important. Projected marginal or larger improvements that eek out substantial additional bushels could have a large economic benefit if the corn crop is reduced in size over the Midwest and grain prices move higher.
With the calendar moving to mid-June we can expect CRW egg hatch and root feeding to begin a bit later than in recent years. Experience tells us that plants under stress are less likely to form the normal amount of Bt toxin. Thus the traited plant could be less protected by the Bt traits than normal. At the same time the planting time insecticides will likely be more degraded than is typical for most of the products. Corn on corn fields should be checked for feeding damage after the fire flies appear.
Many fields seemed to enter their ugly period which can be when the plants are on their own and have to procure their own mineral supply versus getting them from the attached seed kernel. Other causes could have been the very dry soils which are not releasing the minerals as they normally do, or any applied mineral chelating herbicides needed to retain their normal dark color. Poor uptake of nitrogen could have also been a cause. There were many growers who noticed this and were seeking answers. If the slow rate of plant development was a shortage of energy, minerals or hormones, we were hoping the BioDnye ‘Advance’ product applied foliarly was going to supply those three compounds. It did last year.
The Bean Crop
The bean plants are slower than normal in adding growth stages. Most are still in the unifoliate to V1 to early V2 stage. They were very slow in germinating and emerging. Lack of moisture could be slowing their ability to form new leaf tissue. The plants typically form new leaves every 3.8 days and they have to reach V5 before they can enter the flowering or R1 stage. It appears that early planted beans have not grown as fast as they have in previous years, thus may not show the increase in podded nodes and total nodes per plant. Thus, adding additional branches could be important to producing higher yields. We like to see the cytokine producing bacteria or Impulse applied the young plants to stimulate more branching.
While the bean plants have been slower in developing, the pigweed plants don’t seem to be handicapped this spring. I have seen some in the 3 to 4” tall stage, which is the height at which control begins to get more difficult due to the additional growing points which form on the main stem.
Bob Streit is an independent crop consultant and columnist for Farm News. He can be reached at (515) 709-0143 or www.CentralIowaAg.com.