The college football and NFL seasons have started, the Spencer Fair ended, and the days have gotten shorter and the daytime temperatures have cooled off. Thus, the unofficial fall season has arrived. In a few parts of the state the first corn fields have been harvested for grain while the silage chopping season ended weeks ago before things got excessively dry. Much of Iowa had predictions of rain arriving this past weekend. It arrived on both Friday and Saturday with several heavy storms moving thru each day. At this time no one will turn any amount of rain down. The bean fields that are still green will be able to complete pod fill, but will not be able to compensate for flowers and pods that aborted during the periods of both drought and heat stress. It is time to start filling the moisture profile which has been depleted after two very dry seasons.
I had gotten a note from my sister from Chicago a few weeks ago about a birthday party being held for my aunt on my mother’s side up in St Paul on Sept 11. At first I thought we had put in too many miles in recent days and were worn out. After a few more days to think about it, we figured this would be the perfect event to see old cousins, aunts and two still living uncles on the large Koenig’s side and the next time for any gathering would likely be for a funeral. Carol had never met many of these people. One cousin who attended was instrumental in getting her book published and to #1 on the Amazon list. So, we hopped in the car and made the three-hour drive and had a great time with siblings, uncle, aunts and a few new people present.
In the drive to St Paul, I had a chance to view the crops which received much of the rain that should have fallen in Iowa, but was diverted to the north. The corn looked great. None of the fields on the I-35 route had developed yellow or brown upper leaves. If they can avoid an early frost, they could harvest a very good crop.
Additional Thoughts on the Farm Progress Show
It was great having the chance to spend a few days at the big Ag show. It was not as large as the Tulare Ag show out west and not as large as the Expo Agro Show in Curitiba, Brazil, but great for the Midwest. It seemed like they added onto the Varied Industry Tent to provide room for smaller companies which had been waiting for booth space. My week had started out on Monday when Marian and I headed north to meet up with the large contingent of visitors from Brazil and Argentina. They were a large group of dealers, consultants and market place people who were inquisitive about both new products and those that have gained enough exposure to demand a share of the US marketplace. We stopped SW of Ft Dodge to view and examine several fields south and SW of town.
It ended up being a small world as several of the agronomists who were classmates of Antonio Negro, the Argentine agronomist who stayed with us for a few months back in 2017, just happened to be in the Argentine contingent.
Marian is farmer from Bulgaria who operates a large farm along with his brother and employees raising corn, wheat, sunflowers and soybeans. He had been advised to attend this show, so made it happen. I had been answering his questions about drought proofing their crops using minerals, biologicals, and anything else that would help his plants tolerate dry conditions. He wanted opinions on what products would allow their crops to tolerate the very dry conditions plus improve soil health back in his and surrounding countries. He has been using the BioEmpruv/Heat Shield for a few years now. He was also interested in the CaSi, so visited with the U.S. group out in ID plus paid a personal visit to the foliar experts down in Monterrey, Mexico. He knew most of the larger companies at the show, especially the larger ones they had done business with in past years with his operation. On the Friday after the show we made a quick trip out to Utah to visit with a very good chemist who has been developing mineral and fermentation based plant medicines to use against bacterial infections in plants.
Local Crop Conditions
One item which has been noticeable is the yellowing of the upper corn canopy where a % of the plants are totally dead. The rest have yellowed and dead top and bottom leaves yet have not formed any black layers. In past years this lead to very slow drydown as the kernels remained connected to the vascular system. One common theme mentioned in the summaries of the ProFarmer Crop Tour participants was the late planted corn still needed two to three weeks of warm weather to mature and develop decent grain depth.
Soybean Field Inspections
In the last few seasons years many growers pulled off their gloves and devoted themselves to learning how to grow higher yielding beans. Many centered their efforts to planting early in order to form additional branches on the main stem and to increasing pod retention. The cool/cold soils prevented early planting and germination and the formation of additional podded nodes on the main stem. To counter this we had growers applying mixture of a hormonal bacteria, minerals plus energized sugars. The first application was near V5/R1 and the second near R3. In most fields the results look very promising. The best of these are now receiving R4 or R5.5 foliars with the intention to increase size.
With the high bean prices seen last spring more growers were asking what extra products or management programs they should use to coax more bushels from their bean acres. The fields mostly looked very good, with the big variable being rainfall amounts and timings. If they end up being successful they will be convinced to try a similar program in 2023. Adding this mineral application with products that will boost the plants’ immune function enough to keep leaf diseases such as Septoria and Cercospora away.
Be aware that Gall Midge flies were confirmed in additional counties this past summer. Currently nearly every county west of I-35 in Iowa played host to them this season. A four state effort by teams of entomologists from four Ag Universities have been studying their behavior, reproduction and migration pattern. The insects typically first infect outside edges of a field and in time move inward, at times causing up to a 50% yield loss. Knowing this, the best control tactic may be to treat the seed used to plant the border rows with a long residual shrimp shell based product which induces plants and soil microbes to produce the Chitinase enzyme. This enzyme dissolves insect body parts. Strategic patterned use of Chitosan products are currently being used to treat potato and sugar beet nematodes very effectively at a much reduced cost. You may want to check out the O2YS Company web site.
Corn Appearance
2009 the corn crop instead of staying green, had the leaves on the top and bottom of the plants yellowing and dying while the husks stay green. This is opposite of how corn plants are supposed to mature. There are proposed reasons for this mismatch in maturity development. The first cause could be that the plants ran out of moisture on lighter ground or in second year corn. The 2nd cause may be a high level of Anthracnose infection. This fungus survives on crop residue from one season to the next and on both corn and soybeans. A third cause might be an internal chain reaction where the plants need nitrogen to facilitate the formation of protein in the grain. Dry soils slow the release of OM fixed nitrogen plus slow the fixation of atmospheric nitrogen. The plant in its quest to source N will denature proteins in the upper leaves, causing them to change color. (This is from a retired DowAgro chemist who worked on stabilizers and is now with Kugler’s Fertilizers in NE) When corn growers apply a jellylike slow release N product, such as Kugler’s KQCRN there will be no upper leaf browning. The fourth cause could be a major decline in plant health due to a bacteria clogging their vascular systems. One can check for thumb print like lesions below the ears. Also check on the intactness of the second ear which never enlarged. If they turned brown, mushy and have a dead fish smell, bingo the problem is bacterial in nature and could have been avoided. Fungicides don’t control it. The possible fifth cause of upper leaf browning can also be major solar flare activity (CME or coronal mass emission) which release enough radiation capable of scalding upper canopy leaves. Very few meteorologists other than Simon Atkins don’t recognize this. Our NASA observatory manager friend detects this with his equipment and will confirm recent CME events on this.
One job that every corn grower needs to do now is walk every field and perform the push test where you push plants to a 45% angle. If they bend and break at one of the lower nodes, they have an increased chance of stalk lodging. Plants raised under high degrees of moisture stress, dry soil caused mineral deficiencies, or where Goss’s is present typically have standability problems. In fields I checked last week in a very dry area using the push test had as a 95% failure rate.
Bob Streit is an independent crop consultant and columnist for Farm News. He can be reached at (515) 709-0143 or www.CentralIowaAg.com.