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Join the University of Minnesota Extension Crops team in addressing all your crop-related questions this growing season, from soil fertility, agronomics, pest management and more. We will tackle issues as they arise to help you make better crop management decisions this season.
Alright. Good morning, everybody, and welcome today to our Strategic Farming Field Notes program. These are brought to you by generous support from the Minnesota Soybean Research and Promotion Council, the Minnesota Corn Research and Promotion Council, and, of course, University Extension. So today, we're going to talk about an update on small grains and cover crop termination as well. I'm Liz Stahl, extended educator here out of the Worthington Regional Office, and our speakers today are doctor Jochum Wiersma.
Liz Stahl:He's our extension small grain specialist out of Crookston. And then we have Ryan Miller, extension educator crops out of the out of the Rochester regional office. So Joakim, we'll start with you today here. And, yeah, just wanna see what how are things looking on the small grains front?
Jochum Wiersma:Okay. Well, good morning. If you kinda look like I'm half lighted, half dark, that's because My desktop try decided not to work this morning. So you're on I'm on my phone, and I have
Liz Stahl:Looking good, Jochum. Looking good.
Jochum Wiersma:I kinda look like a yin yang kind of you know? I don't know. Anyway, small grains. The first fields, and I was in that first wave two in Southeast Minnesota across Southern Minnesota. The first fields went in last couple days of March.
Jochum Wiersma:They had a bout of really cold weather that wasn't in about five to seven days after planting, which wasn't in the forecast. Although that looked kind of scary, most of those fields, I have not heard any problems. The trials that I seeded had excellent stands despite that cold snap where we dipped down to, I think, in Becker as low as 12 degrees one morning. And so that tells you again because, you know, air temperature gets measured the the minimum temperatures get measured at three feet. That's not necessarily what the salt temps are.
Jochum Wiersma:And that small grains are relatively robust when it comes to handling some adverse conditions right after planting. I haven't heard much problems since. It's been nice and cool. Planting progress got halted several times in Northwest Minnesota because just little showers pushed us back here and there. But overall, I think stands are good.
Jochum Wiersma:We had we're still relatively dry in the Northwest. Had some tremendous wind erosion events, if we talk about cover crops later, that actually damaged some of the the first or second leaves. They've got sand blasted pretty bad. Those fields should recover, especially because we had cooler conditions following those wind events. And any additional leaves that are gonna come, third and fourth leaf shouldn't have any damage, and the crop will tiller normally.
Jochum Wiersma:And I doubt we're gonna see a yield effect at the end of the season.
Liz Stahl:Does that have any impact on diseases disease potential to Jochum, or is it too early, you know, if you got sandblast and stuff?
Jochum Wiersma:There is no it's too early for any diseases. It was too cool for any diseases to get going. It's too dry. It's it's mostly physiological injury. It's not a pathway.
Jochum Wiersma:Potentially, could be a pathway for normally what we would see much later in the season called bacterial leaf streak. But bacterial leaf streak, it was too cool, too dry to be I doubt we're gonna see any of it at at this stage in the game. Weed control is underway in the Northwest. We're reaching that three to four leaf stage, which is ideal for weed control, especially if you're combating wild oats because that's a pretty competitive one in small grains. In the South, I'm getting some questions here and there on wheat control and oats.
Jochum Wiersma:Historically, of course, the growth regulators have been the preferred choice, but people have to understand that MCPA, although it's probably the cheapest option, there is a risk of injury always, and we have well, it was 95 degrees here in Crookston yesterday. I don't know how warm you guys were down south. That increases the risk for crop injury. We have other options that are safer for the crop. When you look at the winter cereals, winter rye is fully headed or starting to head across Southern Min.
Jochum Wiersma:We're in boot stage or just before the boot stage in Northwest Minnesota. And that tells you even though we haven't had a lot of heat units, as Ryan talked about earlier, when we were still offline or not in the webinar yet, Rye is very daylight sensitive, so it will pretty much head the same week every single year.
Liz Stahl:And
Jochum Wiersma:that's probably in a year where we haven't had any heat units in April and May, and you're trying to use it as a cover crop can create some additional complications because, as Ryan will explain, once that stuff has started heading, it's difficult to control. So that's kind of an overview where we're at. Anthony, I is on the is on the webinar too. I have not heard of any problems with insects. Armyworm flights into, rye or anything.
Jochum Wiersma:So if if there are concerns, please let me know.
Ryan Miller:Hey, Jochum. Question for you. So so the winter cereal trial down here is starting to push heads, we're facing some really hot temperatures this week. Is there anything to be concerned with there? Are we gonna kneecap our yields?
Ryan Miller:Or
Jochum Wiersma:So the rye is a cross pollinator, and you can get, if it's indeed above 95 degrees, can get some sterility. If in that last phase, the pollen might become sterile if it's really, really hot. I have never seen that yet. I've seen, which was I was a little bit worried about, last Monday, we were still dipping down below 32. That can also cause, sterility in the pollen if the tissue gets nick you know, gets basically below freezing.
Jochum Wiersma:That I've seen once in the last ten years in Southern Minnesota and Northern Iowa. That definitely will make yield.
Ryan Miller:Yeah. And I I don't think that, 95 threshold is is there. I don't think we're gonna hit that. We've got close to or about 90 degrees yesterday, but I think the rest of the week is looking a little bit cooler maybe. Maybe another approaching 90 on Friday, but it won't hit that 95 mark down here, I don't think.
Liz Stahl:Yeah. If we're the upper eighties
Jochum Wiersma:below 90 if we're staying below 90 or right around 90, I think we're safe.
Liz Stahl:That's good. Because, yeah, it's certainly been a roller coaster with temperatures and weather and what we've all been seeing this year. But, yeah, I don't see any questions yet here, Joakim, but I know you'll be hanging on here if anybody does have any questions that pop up. Anything else you wanna add? I did also I should note put in the chat here for those joining live today, there is a small grain pest survey if you wanna participate in part of that, and it is kind of targeted towards the Northwestern and West Central part of the state.
Liz Stahl:You can click on that link and sign up for that. Scouts will come out to your field just checking for insects and diseases. No cost to do that. But, again, if you're interested in that checkout, check out that link. But anything else you wanna add, Joakim, before we switch over to Ryan here?
Jochum Wiersma:No. You saved my bacon already by mentioning indeed the survey. That serve that survey is a lot of our pest problems have to come from the South each and every year. And so this the survey and the scouting is a way for us to see how disease and insect problems migrate north from south to north, and in a way is a way to forewarn growers north of where you are as a as a listener. And luckily, for almost all diseases there and insects, it's multiple generations.
Jochum Wiersma:And so it's a good way to practice IPM and spray only when needed.
Liz Stahl:Alright. Well, that's teamwork, Jochum. We were both tasked to remember that, so so we did that. So alright. Well, hey.
Liz Stahl:I will turn it over to Ryan then. Ryan, he's been working with you know, at Rochester there. I know you've got a lot of different research plots. You've got some cover crop trials going on as well. Certainly one that's looking at termination options too.
Liz Stahl:But before we kinda get into the details of that, maybe you just wanna give a little bit of background of how things have been looking. You know, it's been, course, we have differences across the state and and how our cover crops are doing. What have you been seeing there in Southeastern Minnesota with growth and everything? Maybe even starting with fall conditions too.
Ryan Miller:Alright. Well yeah. So fall conditions, things were were kinda dry, and, you know, I think there it seemed like there was variable establishment of fall, seeded. Our ours went in kinda late after corn harvest. Did get drilled in, this project you were talking about, but it didn't germinate in fall.
Ryan Miller:It just kinda the season shut down after after it was planted and didn't really get any opportunity to grow. And so, the seeds sat in the soil until the spring when things warmed up and, it was able to germinate. And so, you know, I think some people had that experience. Other folks get it in a little earlier. I know folks that follow silage corn, You know, there's more opportunity there to to put a cover crop in and catch some rainfall and get some establishment.
Ryan Miller:Certainly, I'm seeing some people out of Wisconsin that had more abundant rye growth than what we had at our project here in in Southeast. So, you know, that's, that's kinda where how things started, for us. But, we were, again, looking at 60 pounds of winter cereal rye. So kind of a a reduced rate from what you might plant to, to get a grain crop off a rye, but, looking for some of those kind of affordable alternatives to, to kinda create a living cover and then also, look at potential for weed suppression as well as how the, cover might interact with herbicide applications, if it might, adversely impact it or, you know, add to, what we're seeing. A lot of folks ask questions or make comments around this, and so that's kinda what our project has been designed to do is kinda start to look at some of these questions and comments people make and try to try to kinda validate it or at least get some replicated experience with it on a scale where we can look at everything right at the same site so that it, we can make some fair comparisons in in this kind of situation.
Ryan Miller:So, anyways, looking at it, I know we mentioned winter, or overwinter or or pests of small grains. A lot of them don't overwinter here. They're, snowbirds, so they have to blow in every year. And a major concern for us with cover crops in this part of the state has been some of those migratory insects. And I know watching the the, in particular, true armyworms, a bad one for us.
Ryan Miller:But watching watching some of the trapping network information, it's been a pretty slow year. We haven't really been catching a lot.
Liz Stahl:Yep. We've got some traps out here. Not too many that I've caught this year either.
Ryan Miller:So so I so I think that's that's a a positive. You know, there it's certainly something, though, if someone's using a small grain as a cover crop that you really have to be tuned in on. I have personally, if I was farming any acres, you know, on a larger scale, I certainly would, maybe invest in some of the trapping, stuff. But it's pretty low bar as far as, doing that. We do have an opportunity to participate in our trapping network if people are interested in that so you could monitor a trap yourself, and kinda keep tabs on those insects.
Ryan Miller:Because, you know, when we go to terminate the cover crop, that's when we're gonna need to to think about managing some of those insects that might destroy our cash crop. And, well Mhmm. You know, we see a lot of cover crops going to soybean. It's probably the the better fit when we look at corn and soybeans, and it's our major crops here in the southern part of the state. Certainly, the true armyworms aren't aren't gonna complete their life cycle on a soybean, crop, but I will tell you this, true armyworms will not starve to death.
Ryan Miller:Okay? So they will eat plants until they, can move, and their name says it all, armyworm. I mean, they've historically been a bigger issue for small grains, particularly in the West and, Northwest part of the state. But, again, a sporadic pest of of of this, but it will move, and it will eat corn. And we've had situations where true armyworms have moved out of cover crops and destroyed corn crops, as well as some of our hay ground creates some major issues there.
Ryan Miller:So very important to pay attention to that and the potential threat. Again, very sporadic.
Liz Stahl:And and I know even our colleague here, Anthony Hanson, he's on as well. He's got some pictures of them munching on soybeans too. Like you said, they're not gonna starve. So not typically seeing that, but it it can happen.
Ryan Miller:Yep. They'll they'll gas up before they head to your hay crop or your your your corn crop. So that's that's kind of their mode of operation. This year, we, again, haven't been catching much. The one weird one, we've been catching a lot of what we believe is the Bethune pinion moth, which is a woodland moth.
Ryan Miller:So it looks like our pheromone might be, at least in my theory here, might be kind of, attracting that one too because any times that we get a pretty songs strong southern wind, I have a kind of a tree grove off to the north, and that's those are the nights we get big captures of, you know, nine, ten, 12 pinion moths. And and so that that one's just here. And, again, that's not gonna be a pest of our, of our of our crops. So it's one of those things you do have to learn a little bit on your I ID, but it's not terribly, difficult. The true armyworms are pretty distinct looking looking moth, and so that's a thing to consider.
Ryan Miller:And particularly around that termination time because if we look at, if we look at termination products that we're using as far as herbicides, there's there's opportunity at that point to include an insecticide if you think you have, infestation. And, certainly, doing some ground truthing with a sweep net is is, is something that's possible too to kinda get out there and look for, worms that might be in there, look for feeding on the cover crop and and make that determination whether you're gonna include that. I went, you know, because we like integrated pest management. We're not gonna say, well, just throw it in with every mix. I know I've heard that suggestion.
Ryan Miller:I don't think it's warranted, and it's certainly, at least in my mind, is probably a bad idea that
Jochum Wiersma:we should be doing some
Ryan Miller:ground truthing and and figuring out what's the better risk. And
Liz Stahl:we do have a lot of resources online too just to help identify, you know, identification of true armyworm because, like you said, you mentioned some different moss that person might be catching and seeing. So I do encourage people to go to our extension crops website. You can just type in true armyworm. And, again, some nice resources to help identify those. And black cutworm too, that's another one that potentially be an issue too.
Liz Stahl:But but, yeah, let's get back to this this termination topic too because I know you're looking at a lot of different products out there. You know, any have you been seeing anything so far?
Ryan Miller:So, I mean, this year has been really challenging from a temperature standpoint and a dry condition standpoint. We kinda got two of the devils lined up together here as far as making herbicides not work well when we have dry conditions and slower growing conditions. Certainly, we can see some challenges to get good complete termination, and I think there were some folks that were terminating their covers early because of some of the moisture concerns. But early, we did have some temperature, and I know Joachim was mentioning this earlier. I mean, we had we'd have a few days that we get warm.
Ryan Miller:We'd have overnight temperatures in the fifties, which is okay, but we had these big, not big, but stretches of days where air temperature's barely at 50 during the day and then overnight into the thirties or twenties. And you're just not gonna see great herbicide activity in those those kind of circumstances. I you know, heat is our friend, humidity is our friend, and good soil moisture is our friend, and and we just really haven't had any of those things going up.
Liz Stahl:Just kinda laugh when you read on the label, and they're like, hey. Don't apply this until you have overnight temperature, what, fifty, sixty degrees or something. You're like, yeah. That doesn't happen in the spring.
Ryan Miller:We barely ever yeah. Well, I mean, in this year, it might be more typical. Now if we look at the past handful of years, certainly, we've had warmer and and some moist conditions and some some opportunities to get better better residual or sorry. Should better control of the cover crops that that might be out in the fields. And so so that's a big challenge for us.
Ryan Miller:You know? Well, especially this year, we looked at a couple inches of rain in April. If we start looking at some of those first planting dates for for corn and soybeans, know, fairly dry in this area. And then 11 county area in Southeast is where I'm focusing in. And and certainly this month, a month over month from May to April now, locally, we've had about an inch and a half rain, which is abnormally dry for for us Yeah.
Ryan Miller:As far as amount of precipitation. So very big challenges to get herbicides to work. That said, we we did do this project, and set this project up last fall. And so we're we're kinda moving through it. And, and so we've kinda set this up to do three different termination timings to to test this, concept of ten days before planting, at planting, and then we're gonna terminate ten days after planting, just to see see how things work.
Ryan Miller:Now, you know, because it was slow to develop, we kinda we waited a little bit to get a little bit more, rye biomass out there for that ten day before planting termination, and it went fine. I think, if we look at at the products we use, we kinda had a standard treatment, the kind of a suggested, treatment that folks are using, where we had five ounces of verdict herbicide, and we use PowerMax three. So we had 30 ounces of of PowerMax three. That'd be a quart of of more typical Roundup. And then we include some adjuvants.
Ryan Miller:So, with the burndowns, we're putting some oil in, and we're putting some AMSOL in there to deal with deal with any hardware water issues, kinda, you know, get that water, conditioned. And then we, we also see some of the benefits then of, what it adds to herbicidal activity. So these these burndown applications are very similar to some of our postemergence, application. You know, you got a lot of components going in there. Certainly, we can't use verdict postemergence.
Ryan Miller:So our ten days after planting, we can't we gotta eliminate that treatment. But so, anyways, that was kind of our our standard treatment comparison. We also had a couple of other, treatments in there. One, fierce MTZ is a soil residual as well as there should be some burndown activity, with that one, in that kind of same mix with some with some Roundup or glyphosate oil and Amsol or Amsol, I should say. It's liquid AMS.
Ryan Miller:There are many different manufacturers. They're all pretty standard with the 34% concentration. So a liquid AMS, and that would be 5% volume per volume in the solution, and we could figure out how many pounds of AMS that would be if people are interested. But, anyway, so that was kind of our our kinda standard approaches. And now, we also were able, after talking with the Valiant rep, able to test some of their product that's currently going through the EPA registration process.
Ryan Miller:So, they have active ingredient called iprifenacil. I believe it's gonna be marketed under the trade name Repetacil as its base kind of ingredient, and this is a burndown product. And and it's kind of trade name that suggested that Rapidesyl is is kind of a pretty apt description, I would say. It seems to work and work well and kinda fast. We've got their product, though, that's got a little bit of a residual component in with that that burn down.
Ryan Miller:So it's gonna it's gonna offer some some kinda soil residual after after the burn down. And looking at this year's response or or or activity with this, basically, when we look at about seven days after, that product was nearing a 100% termination even with these cold and dry conditions. Wow. That's really good. In our standards, we're probably more down around 90%, termination at that point.
Ryan Miller:So so we're kinda following this to see how how it works, but it looks like there's some promise with the ingredient or with that particular active ingredient. Now it's not currently registered. It's it's kinda going through that process. I think it's at the EPA right now. And then after the EPA, it's gonna move through our state regulatory process.
Ryan Miller:So I'm not sure what the timeline is, and there's no guarantees, I guess, that that 100% you'll you'll get to to to use the product, but it looks, looks like it's making its way through that through
Liz Stahl:that process. That's encouraging because I know in the past, like, our research has shown, like, well, you know, any glyphosate product, that typically has been the most consistent, right, when we've looked at termination. We've especially earlier earlier stages of of the cereal rye. And, you know, there's some questions around paraquat. Will that be available?
Liz Stahl:You know, I don't know how that's all gonna turn out either. There's, you know, some health concerns with that, especially if applicators weren't wearing their PPE, you know, connections to diseases there. So, yeah, it'd be nice if we could get a get another option out there. So
Ryan Miller:yeah, Liz. And I think, just kinda kinda bridging the gap here. Joakim was mentioning something earlier about Rye and Rye heading date. And the strange thing here at the app planning timing, we did start to see some heads emerge, on the the Rye. So it'll be interesting to see, you know, how that impacts control because, I've what I've seen in the past is it's, it's, your control gets a little less consistent as we get into the boot stage.
Ryan Miller:And as we head out, particularly with rye, it becomes more challenging to get good control of that weed. So it'll be it need to just kinda see how these work as we did start to see some heads emerge here at at the app planning timing. And, certainly, I would expect a lot of that to be up and progressing as we get to that ten days after. There could be some some lessons to learn there.
Liz Stahl:No. That's some really, really interesting work. And and, again, just a reminder to people that, you know, we're looking at cover crops. Typically, you're not gonna get the control that you could with a pre emergent herbicide alone, you know, with the early emerging weeds. But if we have that combination, like you're putting some pre emergent residual products with that burn down, hopefully, that's gonna, you know, ramp up that control that we get early on in the season.
Liz Stahl:And, hey, I'm looking at the time. I know I need to start wrapping things up here, but I understand you've got a field day coming up likely for this soon too potentially, or am I jumping the gun on this?
Ryan Miller:In Rochester, we're we're hoping to have a bigger field day on the thirtieth.
Liz Stahl:June 30?
Ryan Miller:June. Yep. Yep. If folks are interested, though, in seeing some of this, you know, certainly, some of the treatments went on. The planting was on, what, Memorial Day.
Ryan Miller:It was too windy to spray, so we sprayed yesterday. So we're kinda in that timeline. If people are interested in looking at some of these products, certainly don't, hesitate to reach out to me. Our site's open. So, I mean, I can give you directions.
Ryan Miller:I can give you a map. You can go you can go look at it. Or from out there, we can take a quick tour of some of these things. So, certainly, certainly an opportunity there. And let's see here.
Ryan Miller:We also have just a plug for Yokum here. We've got a small grains tour out at the Lawlar Farm where Yokum's got two different variety trials, a winter cereal and spring cereal, as well as, some work being done with looking at, nitrogen response to oats because there's a lot of interest in food grade oats. There's a trial out there with with, a different nitrogen rates. So, again, that one is a little bit early. We haven't seen the results of it yet, but it is happening, and that tour is on the tenth of, June.
Ryan Miller:So
Liz Stahl:Great. And I'll put in a plug. We do have our big cover crop field day at Lamberton at the Southwest Research and Outreach Center. That'll be June 25 from nine to one. And and all these events, if you just go to our Extension crops website, you should be able to pull up more information about each of these events.
Liz Stahl:So, again, thank you. I'll thank our speakers. And we did have one question about here, and I don't know if anybody on here can answer this. This is why I haven't addressed this one yet. But they said Western Wisconsin had horrible true armyworm damage in organic corn last year.
Liz Stahl:What have you seen that works the best in organic corn for armyworms? So I don't know if anybody on here can address that. Got a lot of weed scientists on here. So
Ryan Miller:Yeah. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I know they make a Pyganic. It's an organic pyrethroid.
Ryan Miller:I'm not sure anyone's done any I'm not seeing any research on results. Like, how well will it kill armyworms? Might be worth a shot. I know it's extraordinarily expensive, though. So
Liz Stahl:Any parting words there, Jochum, too? I see you back here. I
Jochum Wiersma:was hoping Anthony would still be on to answer the question. If the grower I would e if the grower is still online, email Anthony what our options are what his options are in organic corn.
Liz Stahl:Oh, we do have Anthony on hand.
Anthony Hanson:Just managed to get back here quick. So I'm just wonder I Spinosad might be something else to look at, but also very expensive. So between that and PyGanic, those are the two I'd be looking at. I'm not a 100% on the efficacy of those right now, but I know it's also life stage dependent too. So if you get them when they're younger, better efficacy.
Anthony Hanson:If they're older, they can tolerate a lot more.
Liz Stahl:Yeah. And Claire LaCanne says Spinosa too. So alright. Well, hey. We are a little bit after time, so I will again thank you, Ryan.
Liz Stahl:Thank you, Jochum, for speaking today and thanks everyone for joining us. And we also again thank our sponsors, Minnesota Soybean Research and Promotion Council and the Minnesota Corn Research and Promotion Council. Hope to see you again back here next week, same time on June 3. And one of the topics that we'll be looking at is an update on forages. So again, hope everybody has a great week and thanks for joining us.