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Welcome to University of Minnesota Extension's Nutrient Management Podcast. Each month we bring you the latest research in nutrient management for crops and how you can incorporate the latest tips and best management practices to your farm.
Hello and welcome to the Nutrient Management Podcast from University of Minnesota Extension. I am Jack Wilcox in communications here with Extension.
Jack Wilcox:Today, we're gonna talk about nutrient management for dry edible beans in Minnesota and across the Midwest. We have four panelists here with us today. You're gonna recognize Dan Kaiser, and then we also have several experts from neighboring states. Could you introduce yourselves?
Kristin Simons:I'm Kristin Simons. I am the research agronomist at the Carrington Research and Extension Center in North Dakota. I conduct a lot of variety trials and other research, whether it's nutrient, row spacing, and such. And I come with a background because I used to work with a dry bean breeder at NDSU for about five years.
Ana Carcedo:Hi. I'm Ana Carcedo. I'm the broadleaf agronomist at NDSU. As my title says, I work with broadleaf. That means that I work with soybeans, dry beans, canola, sunflower. I've been in this position for two years, and I've been conducting some research in dry beans.
Bijesh Maharjan:Hello. I'm Bijesh Maharjan. I'm a soil nutrient management specialist at University of Nebraska Panhandle Research and Extension Center in Scottsbluff, Nebraska. So lately, I've been working from a swell fertility perspective on dry edible beans.
Daniel Kaiser:This is Daniel Kaiser. I'm a Nutrient Management Specialist at the University of Minnesota. Kinda, you know, last few years, got a little bit into the dry bean research arena, looking at our guidelines again. So I'm kind of excited here to have a few other people on. They've been doing some work because what I've kind of found is there's, not as many people working on this particular crop across the region as as some of the other crops that are out there, and it's a pretty important crop, particularly for parts of Minnesota.
Jack Wilcox:Ana, talk to us about some of the similarities and differences between growing dry edible beans and soybeans, for example.
Ana Carcedo:That's a excellent question, actually. One will say that you will have a lot of similarities because both of them are leguminous crops, but there is several differences. When we are talking about dry beans, for example, one of the main things that we have to say at the beginning is that we have different market classes. It's completely different how we handle pinto beans compared to black beans, for example. So...
Ana Carcedo:And the environments where they feed are completely different. For example, something that it's really common to see the difference between the East and the West of the River Valley, say, in Minnesota and North Dakota, is that in North Dakota, we produce mainly pinto beans and black beans because this one adapt better with our heavy soils. But when we go to the Minnesota side that we start having more sandy soils, then we start seeing that, oh, they start producing more kidney beans even though in the last few years, we have, rising acreage on black beans as well. In soybean, we don't have that. We might have some food grade soybeans, but they're...
Ana Carcedo:That... There is really specific for some specialty markets, but it's not that different how we handle soybeans. Right? So saying that, when we're started talking about management, the first thing I have to say and the difference that you will any farmer will think, it's weed management. So something I've been working with some farmers is starting to use cover crops, for example, to try to deal a little bit with this weed issue that we have.
Ana Carcedo:Of course, both of them are leguminous crop that... There's one thing that's really clear and really important when we're talking about leguminous crop, and it's nitrogen fixation. That's a tool that leguminous crop have and not all their crop has. So both dry beans and soybeans fixate nitrogen. But I have to make one difference here. When we're talking about how efficient soybeans are to fixate nitrogen, they're way more efficient than when we are talking about dry beans.
Daniel Kaiser:Yeah. I'm glad you brought up the nitrogen component of this because it's one of the things that I think, people... When you think about something that's a leguminous crop that you don't have to deal with nitrogen at all because of the, rhizobium, and that's not the case. I mean, like, as... And, you know, you can inoculate most of our growers here, and I'd assume, but, Josh, probably yours are probably the same way to see a lot of relation.
Daniel Kaiser:We don't have recommendations for the inoculated versus the non inoculated like North Dakota state does. So maybe that was just more or less the assumption that most people weren't inoculating. But, you know, one of the main things about nitrogen to watch out for though is there is... Too much can be an issue because of disease. I mean, that's one of the things that, over application, you'll get, more vegetative growth, and I think it's white mold is probably the the larger issue.
Daniel Kaiser:You know, we can kinda get some of that in there and have some issues and see yield be reduced. So, you know, I'm kinda glad that Dave Franzen did some work looking at the economics. I mean, I've tried to do that. My data set's nowhere near, enough really to be looking at, you know, where I can calculate economics with. But one of the main challenges, as Anna said, really with, dry beans is with the different market classes, there's a different pricing structure for all of them.
Daniel Kaiser:So it becomes somewhat challenging if you're trying to, you know, figure out how to do some of the economics. So it's one of the things, I guess, that I've been looking at. But pretty similar crops, you know, looking at where we recommend, potassium. You know, I'll talk a little bit about that later, some of the research that we've had. But, you know, harvesting is a little bit more challenging with dry beans.
Daniel Kaiser:It's one of the things that I had to learn, with that, especially as they get dry. Shattering's a big issue. And on the pods, I mean, I think one of the more miserable crops I've had to work with has been red kidney beans, trying to get them harvested because the pods are about right on the ground, so it becomes kind of a challenge to do research with that. But, it's... It was said it's been an interesting crop, and as I'll talk a little bit more about some of the research here as we go along.
Bijesh Maharjan:Soybean goes under, you know, regular commodity, whereas dried beans goes under specialty crop, and that sort of minimizes the pool of resource money that is available out there. And maybe that's one reason why we don't see extensive research going on. Same is true here in Nebraska. You know, some of my Nutrient recommendations were developed long ago, and I just cannot keep up with, you know, revising things. So...
Bijesh Maharjan:And, like Dan said, yes, inoculants, here we recommend only on the first year. If you are seeding a new new new fresh ground for dry edible beans, that's when we recommend inoculants. Otherwise, no.
Kristin Simons:Keeping in mind that the dry beans is... It's a food crop, and so your product is sitting on a store shelf in some cases. So people are looking at what it looks like. You have to be a lot more on top of disease management because everybody will see it if it's into the seed.
Kristin Simons:And the other thing is is, like, when you're thinking about all of your inputs, you know, it really comes down to whether you're inoculating, not inoculating. Are you dry land? Are you irrigated? What's your soil texture? Because that's gonna determine what nutrients, how how available they are to the plant. And do you have dry beans that are normally there?
Kristin Simons:And what are your other type of environmental conditions? How much rain are you getting? And just temperature fluctuations.
Jack Wilcox:Okay. It's time once again for "Jack Doesn't Know That Word" on the Nutrient Management Podcast. Believe it or not, it happens quite a bit. Say what the difference is between inoculation versus fertilization.
Kristin Simons:So, typically, with a lot of the legumes or pulses in general, we inoculate them, which means we're putting in an... Beneficial bacteria, rhizobium, and it allows the colonation. So the rhizobium then will then fix nitrogen for the plant to use immediately. Whereas if we're adding Rhea typically or as nitrogen on the field, and then the plant takes it up that way.
Jack Wilcox:Thanks, Kristen. Dan, let's talk more about the differences in management for dry edible bean between, for example, the Red River Valley versus Southern Minnesota versus Nebraska.
Daniel Kaiser:One of the things I've kind of seen, at least on the recommendation side, is we don't make too much distinction between say the valley and for us Southern Minnesota. I mean, soils, I mean, are different. I mean, the climatic conditions are are definitely different. The main change really, I mean, I think Kristen brought up was dry land versus irrigated. I mean, that does change somewhat of what we recommend, for nitrogen rates and also timing, for us.
Daniel Kaiser:I mean, you know, Bijesh might be able to talk a little bit more about that because I think they deal more with sandier soils as well as we generally recommend some split application of it, and it isn't, I think, as aggressive as we'd recommend for other crops like corn with nitrogen. And, you know, some of the research I've had too, I've been kinda surprised on some of our irrigated soils that haven't really gotten much of a response at all the last few years. Even though, you know, visibly, it's one of the things you could see a lot of my low end rates, you know, visibly yellow in in the field. So I think that's really the main change. I mean, the soils themselves have some of the same issues.
Daniel Kaiser:And, you know, Bijesh has dealt more with iron chlorosis. It's something that we see in Western And Northwest Minnesota effect soybeans that can overlap a little with, with dry beans as well. So, you know, in terms of our recommendations, we still have yield goal based recommendations. I'm gonna talk about that a little bit. When we talk about research here, it's one of the things I've been looking at whether or not we really need that because that was one of the main questions a lot of our growers have had with shifts into black beans.
Daniel Kaiser:Their yield potentials were slightly higher, so they were kinda wondering, you know, comparing the recommendations, which mostly were kidney and navy beans based, that were done. I mean, the early work we did here in Minnesota was in the early nineties. So when some of that, the the nutrient guidelines were put in place, and I know at that point in time, that was a big deal because there's a lot of growers that were really learning about dry beans and looking for that information. So that's kinda why we decided to take a look at it again with some of the changes in classes. So really, as I said, I think that the main shift is really looking at nitrogen management, and that's really kind of where the the changes lie.
Daniel Kaiser:I mean, I've seen a lot of consistency between the valley and kind of our Southern Minnesota, the dry land conditions. So it's mostly dry land versus irrigated, I think, where most of the differences are.
Bijesh Maharjan:And here in Nebraska, you know, dry beans are in the High Plains, semi arid, very dry area, so they are all under irrigation. And, of course, our soils are sandier, high PH, so that differentiates us maybe from Minnesota and Dakotas, as well as our soybean production in the eastern half of the state where, you know, stalls are much healthier. Rainfall itself can reach 30 plus inches compared to ours, which is 14, sometimes single digit rainfall.
Daniel Kaiser:And, Kristin and Anna, I'm assuming, you know, I guess I never really thought about that, but the reason we see more production kinda more towards the West is, you know, one of the differences. I mean, I'm assuming they're a little bit more drought tolerant versus some of the other crops. So that's kinda why the production you see kind of in what we call this this Mid Deck region or North Harvest is kinda the main agency we deal with that, you know, does a lot of the promotion and some of the research funding for that area.
Kristin Simons:Yeah. The dry beans seem to be a little bit more drought tolerant than some of the soybeans, and some of it is is just the fact that we don't have the different maturity groups in dry beans like we do in soybeans, so you're planting them in. You're typically... A normal plant date in North Dakota is right at that end of May, beginning of June. If you get them in too early, they're susceptible to frost, so we try not to get them in too early.
Ana Carcedo:Yes. Just to echo what Kristin was saying, when we're talking about that, like like, better behavior with less water, It's also because we have less yield potential when we're talking about driving. So, of course, we are going to have less water requirements. But, also, one of the reasons that I will say I like to highlight why dry vans really are a good fit for this area is because they are such a short season, and we have such a short season. So that's basically a a good fit in those terms.
Ana Carcedo:So we are able to plant them, I don't know, like, early June or, like, really late May. That's when, like, the the... They have that salt temperature that they like. We are able to harvest mid September, even late September, depending on the year. So it's it's a really good feed in terms of timing as well.
Jack Wilcox:What does recent research indicate pertaining to dry edible beans?
Bijesh Maharjan:Talking about the macronutrients here in Nebraska, potassium is pretty high in our soil, so we don't have any recommendation pertaining to potassium for any crop, actually. Maybe further east, we have more rainfall. It's still hard to find soils with less than one hundred, one hundred and fifty PPM. But when it comes to other macronutrients like phosphorus, our pan endostoids are very calcareous, high carbonates, IPAs, so we do have phosphorus issues in the area. For dry beans, any Olsen test, when it gets single digit, we recommend some phosphorus.
Bijesh Maharjan:And when it comes to nitrogen, again, all the dataset derived recommendations, you know, we just suggest that it takes about a 100, a 120 pounds for forty, fifty bushels of dry beans. And it's across all variety, all the market class, so nothing is very specific to market class. So that's something I would someday would like to pursue. But very, what to say, timely is the iron work because that's the one issue that's regularly brought up at Extension events or on one on one with farmers that they see chlorosis early in the season, even in late August sometimes we have noticed chlorosis in dry beans. So that's something we are working very closely.
Bijesh Maharjan:And besides regular phosphates, sorry, iron sulfates, Gary Hergot, who was scientist before me, he did quite a bit of work on iron chelates and he showed, you know, iron, this orthoorthoheffy, what do you call it, eDDHA, really works well. But following his work, what I really pursued is the timing of the application, you know. By the time a grower sees symptoms, how quickly they can get into the farm and do some foliar application. Or can you do a preventative application just based on the soil test? And what we have found is that soil test based iron treatment doesn't necessarily work, although we say whenever you go down below something like three, three and a half parts per million iron, you have to apply some.
Bijesh Maharjan:But we have seen chlorosis even in the soil, which has pretty healthy iron content. So my work, recent work, has been once you detect the symptoms, how much time, time window do you have going up for foliar application? And we use some new key lead products, which is based on different acid. It's, I think, chelated with citric acid. It's a water soluble foliar treatment.
Bijesh Maharjan:And we figured out that within a week or so, you have to go in and do some foliar application to reduce or prevent potential yield yield loss due to the IPC. So iron has been my main primary focus for dry bean fertility work these days, but there's much to do with nitrosine as well.
Daniel Kaiser:Yeah. And that's one of the things that you said we've been kind of putting a big focus on has been nitrogen. I wanted to just, again, kind of see since we're a yield goal based recommendation. We've got a couple options. If you use a soil test, there's an equation we generally recommend using, that takes in account some previous end credits as well as the the amount of nitrate in a two foot test.
Daniel Kaiser:I've kinda looked at with and without with that. Looking at the numbers of what we've had, most of the stuff that we've had following... A lot of sites following corn. So, you know, the recommendations, historically, if you're looking at kind of the yields that we were looking at, you know, somewhere around 3,000 pounds per acre. I mean, somewhere between a 100 to a 120 pounds, which is kind of what the research we found more consistently, still kind of fall along that line for our non irrigated sites.
Daniel Kaiser:I mean, I I mentioned before irrigated sites, I just... I mean, it... You'd see the differences early in the season. The... It just, the curves are flat on with that.
Daniel Kaiser:I mean, our our data would say, you know, maybe, slightly higher just based on that site at one twenty, upwards to maybe one fifty pounds of end for, you know, dry beans for the irrigated. The big thing though is I didn't really see a lot of difference among the classes, and we had sites where we had we had kidneys, black beans, and navy beans all on the same site, in the same area to compare the, recommended amounts. And I think that's one of the big things in the research on my end is I'm not so sure I'd be changing the recommendations based on classes, and it didn't seem like the yield goal really mattered quite as much. I wish I, you know, had a little bit more time to do more research. I gather more data to kind of follow-up with some of that.
Daniel Kaiser:But I think that's kind of the thing that I'm seeing. Not as much response to phosphorus. I mean, you know, but, Josh, I mean, we're we don't recommend any applications of beetle... Being passing a seven. So it's kinda similar to soybean that we just don't see much of a response.
Daniel Kaiser:Potassium, no response in that. And the other thing I looked at, in this last study was sulfur. More growers are really interested in putting sulfur around everything. I mean, it's evidently fixed as everything's issues and, you know, really not seeing any benefit for dry bean production. And that's one that I would be slightly worried about too, because I've seen this with soybean is with, over application of combinations of phosphorus, sulfur, nitrogen that you really can stimulate early grow...
Daniel Kaiser:Or stimulate plant growth and, you know, really be concerned about white mold at that point. So I think really the main thing most growers economically, nitrogen's probably the bigger key or anything else. I mean, the other nutrients, I mean, soil test based, if you need it, you need it. And that's what I was kinda wanna have on here too to talk a little bit about iron chlorosis because we have not done any work with it. So I haven't had a lot of questions on it, mostly on soybean, but I know there's some issues out there.
Bijesh Maharjan:Yeah, we also, working with some biotechnologists, we also isolated sideroform forming microbial microbes and tried to put it in their rows and see if can we do some biological test like that, but it didn't seem to help much. But what we realized was really the... And then there are different kinds of chelates, right? We do know expensive chelates seems to retain iron in more soluble form for crops to uptake. This new one with the foliar application, as long as we don't delay and go in and apply even one time application.
Bijesh Maharjan:It could save, you know, two, three hundred pounds of potential loss.
Ana Carcedo:If I can continue the conversation on IDC. So when we're talking about, again, dry beans and soybeans, both leguminous crop. So why we see... I see mostly in these crops is because they have kind of the same system to absorb iron. So what happens is that they have a really efficient system to absorb iron.
Ana Carcedo:So, what they do is, basically, they exudate enzymes and acid because that enzyme needs an acid pH around the roots to be able to to work. So they just exudate those enzymes acid to the soil to be able to transform the the iron to a way that's absorbable. Because most times, it's not like you don't have iron in the soil. You have plenty of iron in your soils. The problem is it's it's not in a way that's available for absorption.
Ana Carcedo:So what happens, at least here in the Red River Valley, is that we have a lot of carbonates. So when we have moisture, these carbonates dissolve to bicarbonates. They rise the pH, and then they compete with these acids that the roots exudate to be able to absorb iron. So saying that, that's why some years you have IDC because you have extra moisture early in the season, and some years, you don't. And that's also why it is so variable especially as well.
Ana Carcedo:So what happens... I'm, yeah, I'm going to say again, like, what has been mentioned again. We have iron chelates that basically what happens is that they don't change forms. So, that's why they remain in a way that they are easily absorbable for the plant. What happened and what we have been saying is that iron killers, they're expensive.
Ana Carcedo:I I I don't think I have the updated number, but from last year, it was around $15 per acre for doing a iron killers application, which which is kind of expensive. So saying that there is other ways also that you can handle IDC besides besides iron kaleid. One of them will be... In soybeans, it's really easy because, again, like, this is something that's really related to the plant capacity to absorb. So there's a lot of genetic variability.
Ana Carcedo:So in soybeans, it's as easy as just choosing the right variety. In diabetes, we don't have that much. We have not explored different... Which is a different capacity of different varieties. But saying the...
Ana Carcedo:Like, just to add more to this, dry beans are better than soybeans to absorb to absorb iron. So in terms of the Red River Valley, at least what I have seen last year that we have a ton of rain, we... I did see some IDC fields within dry ins that was surprising. This year that we have abroad, I did not see any. The main issue that I saw this year in terms of nutrient management, I saw quite a bit of fields that they were zinc deficiency.
Ana Carcedo:It's really easy to confuse the symptoms of zinc deficiency with IDC because it's also interveinal sclerosis of what you are going to see.
Daniel Kaiser:Yeah. And I never thought about that, Anna, because I know we... You know, the micro zinc is one of the ones that, you know, if you're a grower, you need to probably watch your soil testing because they are responsive to that. But, just to kinda wrap up here, you know, Chris and Anna, I mean, I guess I don't deal or look at profitability all that much, you know, currently. I mean, just, you know, any comments from either of you in terms of how dry beans are stacking up right now?
Daniel Kaiser:I mean, I know that's been kind of one of the issues you look at some of these crops that, profitability has been kind of an issue, and you've seen some expansion of acreage, of dry beans. Just kinda curious of anything that you've heard in terms of how, you know, growers... I mean, know, how they stack up with some of the other crops that are out there.
Ana Carcedo:I will say that that expansion on dry edible acreage that you are mentioning, it was kind of the opposite here in North Dakota. So when we're talking about North Dakota acreage, last year, it was close to sixty hundred thousand acres of dry beans. This year, we have 450,000 acres of dry beans. So we are talking that we have a reduction in acreage of around 15%. So what happened?
Ana Carcedo:So at the beginning of the season, the price of the rivings was quite low. We are talking about around 20¢. Something that happened is that most of the farmers that kept, their acreage is the farmers that they are... It's part of the rotations. It's part of their tradition, so they they wouldn't change it.
Ana Carcedo:But it's... If the ones that... The the growers that they are making that economical decisions kind of skip dry beans this year. What happened during the season? We have a trough, different other issues that we have.
Ana Carcedo:The yields that we are expecting are kind of low in terms of dry beans here in Northern. Actually, the price is way better now than at the beginning of the year. So the farmers, decide to grow drive ins actually are going to have that. I hope that they are going to have at least a good profit or an average profit. I will say the average profit considering the the the low yields that they had.
Daniel Kaiser:Yeah. And that's one of the things, I mean, I've heard... And I guess I... You shouldn't say that I've ever heard that we've seen an expansion. I know there's been some talk about it just because it is an an out viable alternative for an additional crop in a...
Daniel Kaiser:In the rotation to add. So I was just, you know, kinda curious how it was stacking up just to see, because that would affect some adoption, in some of these areas. I've always... Was always kind of under the assumption that some of the the production was contracted, which I don't think is the case, or some of it is. Kristen's nodding her head.
Daniel Kaiser:So that some of it is contracted. So I kinda wondered if that limited somewhat in some of the the production in terms of an expansion, if it's something that we wanted to ever look at, try to expand out to additional crop.
Kristin Simons:Dry beans is more of a niche market because it's more of a food product. So you won't expect to see as much expansion unless all of a sudden everybody starts eating a lot more dry beans or we have new export markets that open up. So with soybeans, you have so many different uses for them, and there are a lot more flexibility. And with the dried beans, we can definitely overload the market for what's needed.
Jack Wilcox:What are other major yield limiting factors that we need to be aware of concerning dry edible beans?
Kristin Simons:There's a couple of them. In particular, sometimes we have stand establishment issues with dry beans. Some of it's due to low populations or if the soil crust depending on how it goes or cold and wet soil. So you really have to take time to figure that one out because that can severely limit your yields there as well. You wanna consider weed pressure, so typically, don't wanna go on your dirty field.
Kristin Simons:We've mentioned that before. The other thing that we really wanna think about when it comes to yield limiting factors, you're gonna wanna think about equipment for harvesting for some of it, because I know certain classes, you need to have slightly different equipment. Like your kidney beans usually, especially like in Minnesota, they have different equipment because it allows them to slow it down so that they don't have splits and they can preserve the integrity of the bean itself. Same way with our black beans. The only other thing that I would add is it doesn't necessarily apply for input, but if you're looking for profitability for dried beans, you should take a look at, like, your row spacings and your plant populations because that makes a big difference when it comes to profitability on your dried beans.
Bijesh Maharjan:All our beans are here under irrigation. A year like this year when we had a severe drought and no snow on the mountains, folks who depend on the surface water had very low water availability this year. And even those who pump the water, there's declining aquifers. So something that just to think about as a society.
Jack Wilcox:That about wraps it up for today's show. We were talking about dry edible bean nutrient management. Thank you very much to Dan Kaiser, University of Minnesota Extension, and Bijesh Maharjan from University of Nebraska Lincoln, Anna Carcedo, North Dakota State University, and then Kristen Simons from North Dakota State University. We appreciate you all being here.
Ana Carcedo:Happy to be here.
Kristin Simons:Thanks for the invite, Jack.
Jack Wilcox:Do you have a question about something on your farm? Just send us an email here at nutmgmt@umn.edu. Thanks a lot for listening, and we look forward to seeing you next time.
Jack Wilcox:We'd like to thank the Agricultural Fertilizer Research and Education Council, or AFREC, for supporting the podcast.