The first portion of the 2021 growing season, the planting routine sprint, is well underway is all parts of the Midwest, and complete or nearly complete in the central part where the planting progress entered a twilight period when it was shut down or running at a slow pace due to extremely low soil temperatures. Those cold weather events were quickly pushed northward by a warm front that arrived Thursday a week ago. The next week was warm, culminating on Saturday when 90-degree temps and wind gusts of 50 punctuated the day. That made for a very miserable day to be outside doing any sort of work. The dust was thick in the air, especially where any sort of soil disturbing tillage was being done.
In checking the NWS drought index monitor as of May 1 st 75% of the state appears to be at least in the D0, abnormally dry category, with about a six-county section of NW IA in the D1 to D2 Severe Category. Being in that category in the mid-summer time period is not unusual. Being there in early May is. I have asked a number of growers in the 75+ age category if they can remember having such a dry April ever. They all said ‘No’. Two weeks ago we were watching a major moisture front working its way across the Utah and Idaho section of the PNW. Most forecasters were predicting rainfall amounts of 1.5 to 2.0” of rain. None hit our rain gauges in IA but did deliver 1.0” in parts of IL.
On the sports scene the big event was the NFL draft. Normally those guys getting drafted are players we have not seen much if at all here in the Midwest. This fall Vike’s fans may get to watch both a former Cyclone and a former Hawk player in action on Sunday.
Commodity Prices and Availability Problems
After the drought and derecho problems in the summer and fall of 2020 growers wondered where all the lofty reports of big yields were coming from. Especially with most corn growing states except for Minnesota having serious weather problems. We heard at a seed meeting last fall from a local ethanol plant grain buyer that they were wondering if the corn supply in their trade territory would be adequate to meet feed demand for the rest of the season. We have to wondered how inaccurate those USDA predictions were. With old crop corn climbing above $6.50 most growers are hesitant to sell or know where the top might be. That generates several questions: So how high might corn prices go? How much demand gets killed? Where on the worldwide scale will feed grains come from? Who has corn in inventory yet? Which input prices will reach the stupid category?
For a long time that a lot of the technical ingredients and herbicide manufacturing had moved to China, as well as machining of industrial parts and electronics. Now as many parts and products are not being shipped in and available to us we can see that offshoring supply of so many critical items were not a good idea. Were our political and business leaders too Pollyanish and believers in globalization of supply chains. Did too many politicians take Chinese money?
Emergence
In most years corn growers have things to worry about and be watchful of. Did they plant too deep or too shallow, was the ground too hard or soft to get decent opener action and to close the seed furrow, will the ground be too cold to allow quick emergence or might kernel rots or will insects chew into the kernels to either cause even emergence or a replant situation. This year and for good reason a number of growers have soils that have either stayed dry since the snow melted or received an extra tillage pass that allowed the ground to dry too much. Is there sufficient moisture to let the seeds to imbibe and start the germination process. To the west or south under irrigation the farmers may turn on the pivot to apply an inch of water. All dryland growers can do is hope for a rain. Only getting a half inch may allow germination but not supply deeper moisture to keep root growth going.
SDS
A week ago Ken Ferrie, SF’s crop consultant from Illinois, wrote a column telling bean growers that if they were going to plant soybeans in April they should be proactive in managing SDS. To him it meant applying either ILeVO or Salto or other product to help avoid a problem with the Fusarium caused root disease. It was a good article but I thought he should have gone deeper in explaining the disease and making recommendations for the farmers who had already planted the crop.
The well known USDA ARS Soil Microbiologist from the U of Missouri has done enough research to identify the Fusarium vulgiforma which can became such a problems in certain years, as in 2010 and 2016. The pathogen belongs to the family of slime mold fungi that love to infect in years that have wet soils early in the bean growth cycle. The Pseudomonas fl. Bacteria typically keep the Fusarium fungus in check. A popular nonselective herbicide wipes out a high % of the Pseudomonas population, so the Fusarium population explodes. The mentioned products can be effective but only as a seed treatment. A knotweed extract known as ‘HeadsUp’ has been tested in University trials and wasffound to be decently effective as a lower cost than IleVO. A newer product sold by SprayTec as FullTec Plus can be applied post-emerge and give great control with systemic long lasting results. I would also expect the BW Fusion products in their gylcinated lineup to produce improved plant health where the immune systems fight off the disease.
To see Ferries’ article plus a few related ones check out this LINK.
New Tech
The new issue of Wallace Farmer arrived this week. There was a good article about two newer technologies that could be seen benefiting crop producers. The first was an electrical device from ScanIt that was developed to sniff the air near or in production facilities or fields to capture incoming pathogen spores. With early detection and proper crop modeling all-point bulletins could be disseminated if a serious disease such as Tar Spot had been detected and weather conditions favorable to the disease were occurring. The same could apply to Common or Southern rust in corn. The ScanIt’s team of scientist will be depended upon to build an extensive enough library to be capable of identifying those pathogens I known to affect crops in the valuable grape, veggie, fruit and row crop arena of production.
The second part of the article contained information on the optically controlled sprayer designed by and built for Blue River Technology and now JD. They are expecting it to be used by western US growers who will be using it initially for weed control in summer fallow fields. Important to their engineering efforts is to develop the AI library which will sort the detected plants as crop vs weed plants. The targeted operating speed for the commercial sprayer is a hoped for 10 to 12 mph.
Dry Weather Advice
Though we are not going to use the D word, there are a few items that could help plants tolerate dry conditions much better than doing nothing. Allowing them to minimize their response to stress can be big, as sustaining longer gets them days closer to receiving a soaking rain.
1. Improve soil biology as the little critters will serve as a moisture source during dry weather. Their exudiates will also foster a more dynamic rhizosphere and more active root system with better uptake.
2. Take tissue tests to monitor nutrient levels. With adequate nutrition they can tolerate D much better.
3. According to the head of IPNI Brazil (Tosh Yamada) the inclusion of two minerals in a foliar mix will help the plants form a deeper and more expansive root system. The AgriGuardian mix includes those.
4. Keep the plant canopy cooler. Keep the plant from forming ethylene. Respite from BW Fusion will keep the canopy of any crop 8 to 10 degrees cooler for 15 to 20 days. Cheap and low rates.
5. Applications of MainStay Si foliar near V6 will create a more intact vascular system will improve water use efficiency by 33 to 36%. This was verified by MD Guy Abraham.
6. All of these steps will help, especially if you selected varieties with a more penetrating, deep root profile. Shallow but massive root architecture genetics prefer wetter seasons.
Crop and Weed Emergence
The acres that were planted during the start of the warm conditions in the first week of April have emerged and can barely be rowed. It took a while as the GDU accumulation slowed down dramatically. On the plus side the seed treatments are improved and offer a wider spectrum of control. On the negative side very few seed companies are including foliar nutrition and tissue testing of plants in the seed field and are not managing as well as the top producers.
One issue that may show up is in years when the soil remains cold longer is that the grasses and weeds emerge later after the residual herbicides have been on the ground for a longer period of time and may have lost some of their effect. Just be observant when you scout and time the first postemerge application taking residual period into account.
Bob Streit is an independent crop consultant and columnist for Farm News. He can be reached at (515) 709-0143 or www.CentralIowaAg.com.