Strategic Farming: Field Notes

Takeaways from the cropping season and looking to harvest - August 21, 2024

We want to thank our sponsors the Minnesota Soybean Research and Promotion Council, along with the Minnesota Corn Research and Promotion Council.

Resources:
Thinking about drainage after this season’s extremely wet start? Check out these two upcoming events Aug 22 & Sept 5

Considerations for soybean aphid management 

Recordings, information on future sessions, and additional resources will be at: https://z.umn.edu/strategic-farming, https://z.umn.edu/SFrecordings 


Contact information for today’s show

2024 Farm Resource Guide -  https://extension.umn.edu/managing-farm (top of page)
Crops Team - Upcoming Events - https://z.umn.edu/UMcropevents
Crop production website - https://z.umn.edu/crops
UMN Crop News - https://z.umn.edu/cropnews
UMN Crops YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/user/UMNCrops/
 

What is Strategic Farming: Field Notes?

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.

Ryan Miller:

I'm Ryan Miller, Crops Extension Educator. Earlier this morning, we recorded an episode of the Strategic Farming Field Notes program. Strategic Farming Field Notes is a weekly program addressing current crop production topics. A live webinar is hosted at 8 AM on Wednesdays throughout the cropping season. During the live webinar, participants can join in the discussion and get questions answered.

Ryan Miller:

An audio recording of the live program is released following the webinar via podcast platforms. Thanks. And remember to tune in weekly for a discussion on current cropping and crop management topics.

Dave Nicolai:

Well, good morning. My name is Dave Nicolai. I'm the University of Minnesota Extension Educator, in field crops located at Farmington, Minnesota. We want to welcome you today to our strategic farming, field notes program. We're happy that you joined us for this session.

Dave Nicolai:

The title of our session today is basically corn and soybeans, 2024, a crop year in review and a forecast. These sessions are brought to you by the University of Minnesota Extension and generous support from the Soybean Research and Promotion Council along with the Minnesota Corn Research and Promotion Council. We welcome, doctor Jeff Coulter, University of Minnesota Extension Corn Specialist, along with doctor Seth Nave, University of Minnesota Extension Soybean Specialist. And with that, I'm going to turn it over to, Jeff. Coulter is with us this morning.

Dave Nicolai:

And, Jeff, some of the USDA reports came out, for corn. They look look pretty good. But before I jump to that, let's talk a little bit about crop progress, and the Minnesota Ag News and Crop Progress and Condition report came out this last Monday and they indicated as of last, this past weekend, that corn had reached about, the dose stage was at 62% of the corn crop in Minnesota. Now I believe obviously it's jumped up since that point in time. It is about 10 days, a little bit behind where we are last year, but we're going to be going on to the dense stage.

Dave Nicolai:

But basically, they indicated that corn condition was 61% good to excellent, in, in terms of that, but we're moving right along. We've got good subsoil moisture, at least, 79% adequate and 15% surplus because, of course, it did rain quite a bit here, in the state of Minnesota. So what are some basic crop conditions that you hear from folks, Jeff, either on the phone or in person and so forth across as you have traveled and and, been in contact with folks around the state of Minnesota?

Jeff Coulter:

Yeah. Thanks, Dave. Well, it's highly variable out there. You know, the corn that is tall, that looks healthy, looks kinda normal. I'll I blocked some of that.

Jeff Coulter:

It looks like the yield potential is pretty good on that. It's obviously not gonna be record breaking, but it definitely looks like in a lot of cases, it's gonna be around 200 bushels an acre, give or take. But then, even within that big corn, you'll see, you know, smaller plants, you know, ears that are smaller than normal. There's just some unevenness. Also, you know, in that large corn, you know, oftentimes the stand isn't ideal.

Jeff Coulter:

You know, we don't have the targeted 32, 33,000 plants per acre out there. You know, in many cases, it's closer to 30,000. So, you know, that's gonna take its toll on the yield a little bit as well. And then we got these areas where the corn has received excess moisture, and in many cases, has also been nitrogen deficient. And that corn, you know, it's easily easy to spot.

Jeff Coulter:

It's shorter for 1. The stocks are smaller, and the ears are very poor. You know, in those cases, you know, the yields in could be, like, a 100 bushels an acre, maybe a 150 at the most. So it's gonna be variable. It's I think it's really hard to get a good yield estimate at this point just due to all the variability.

Jeff Coulter:

Another thing we saw this year, especially, like, in South Central Minnesota, there's been fields that have had either spring applied urea or spring applied ammonia pre plant. And, the spring applied urea corn, in many cases is shorter and is nitrogen deficient now, whereas the corn that had spring applied ammonia, looks like it's not quite as nitrogen deficient and is is a larger crop. It's taller. Doesn't look it just looks better. So I think there's some issues there where depending on the nitrogen source and timing, that type of thing, we see differences in end efficiency, and that's, contributing to some of this variability.

Jeff Coulter:

I think the, you know, the yield estimates of I think NASS at a 185 bushels an acre. I suppose statewide that's probably accurate, but, you know, in some fields that seems like it's gonna be quite high. So, I guess it's I guess this is probably a year where it's we're we're just kinda guessing until the combine really rolls. You know, we can go out there and take yield estimates and stuff, but how accurate are we going to be, especially when we consider these drowned out areas and stuff. So, I mean, if one really wanted to get good at estimating yield on their farm, they'd probably need to do some sort of, like, aerial imagery with drone or NDVI or something to try to estimate the amount of area that is, you know, poor, and then then get yield estimates in both the good corn and in the poorer corn to try to get a weighted average.

Dave Nicolai:

What do you think about some of this corn that is shorter, been delayed for one reason or another, but has pollinated, set an ear, does it ever tend to catch up, so to speak, with the rest of the field? Will it produce, very many viable kernels, or is it just going to be behind all the way through, harvest in that in terms of black layer, etcetera?

Jeff Coulter:

I think it's going to be behind pretty much most of the year. I don't think it's gonna yield too well. One thing to be cautious on that is, like, the harvest losses. You know? So oftentimes, we take that for granted.

Jeff Coulter:

We just roll through the fields and get them harvested. But, you know, it's it only takes 2 kernels per square foot to cause 1 bushel breaker yield loss at harvest. So, yeah, you know, you wanna kind of, be mindful on what the harvest losses are and make any adjust adjustments on the headers if needed.

Dave Nicolai:

Well, I think that's an an important I know, I have a weed science background, and we always talk about volunteer corn the next year, Jeff. And, you know, that's the contribution and having to deal with that, is kind of a conundrum in terms of, it's an impact on yield and and if you're gonna be rotating into soybeans. So certainly, combine settings, and then header loss, will all factor into that in that type of situation. Where do you think we are in terms of growing degree day units, GDUs and so forth? I saw some data out of out of Lamberton.

Dave Nicolai:

We're not too far off, from, the normal and historic average, and pretty close, maybe a little bit. But, by and large, I know we've had some warmer days, but also that there's a contribution here at that temperature factor even at night. Isn't there?

Jeff Coulter:

Yeah. You know, high nighttime temperatures help to, keep the daily total growing degree accumulation up. But, kind of surprisingly, you know, at the start of the season, everybody was predicting above normal growing degree days, and that continued for a while. And then it just continued to rain and rain, and, the growing degree day accumulation has been less. We've had stretches of quite cool weather.

Jeff Coulter:

We really haven't had that many hot, unbearable days or weeks. So, you know, I think, we're kinda behind on growing degree to accumulations, and then coupled with that, the hazy skies and stuff, I mean, it's not really optimal conditions for corn production. You know, typically, when we have sufficient moisture like this, you know, we'd like to see daily highs of at least 86 degrees, and if not, into the low nineties, and then having the nighttime temperatures kinda cool down. So, you know, I guess we take what we get, but, it's definitely not hasn't been ideal conditions for, you know, grain filling. Well, yeah.

Jeff Coulter:

The good thing is is we got sufficient moisture. So the, you know, the rainfall keeps coming that is helping us. You know, if the growing season if we have an extended growing season where, you know, it doesn't shut down on temperatures and it kind of extends a little bit, I think that's definitely gonna help us some. But yeah, it hasn't been ideal.

Dave Nicolai:

Yeah. I imagine that we won't see a black layer of physiological maturity to, you know, sometime into September, you know, obviously. But I think always the worry, Jeff, and we we don't have anything on the forecast immediately is, you know, is a frost situation that develops. But, from a crop growth and development standpoint, we wanna we wanna be that to that area and beyond, aren't we, for good kernel depth and and condition and so forth. And and, in terms of keeping our our frost off there and keeping real well into physiological maturity is my point.

Jeff Coulter:

Yeah. The general guideline is 60 days from silking to black layer. So, you know, a lot of the corn was silking around 20 between 24th July to maybe August 1 or slightly later for corn that was very far behind. So I think it's gonna, you know, probably be the 24th September or later for, most of this corn. And, you know, I think that should be sufficient time before the first hard freeze, but, you know, we'll kinda see what happens and take it from there.

Dave Nicolai:

Well, I know that's it's it's certainly the, something that we are gonna be keeping an eye out to now. There are, farmers and so forth that are engaged probably in making corn silage. I know any any comments there about about the timing. We're we're not quite to that point yet. We wanna be a little farther along, don't we?

Jeff Coulter:

Yeah. Half milk stage. So, we got some time yet before that, but, you know, with the variability out there, you know, things to keep keep an eye on will be, you know, what's the crop maturity like, you know, especially in these fields that are highly variable. So you're gonna wanna try to balance that and try to make sure you get it before it gets too dry. There's things to think about.

Dave Nicolai:

Those are are are normally, some of the issues that that people deal with in in, in terms of that. Any last comments about going out? If you wanna take a little bit of a yield check-in the field, there's historically been various methods over the years, even your predecessor, Dale Hicks was involved with some of this, number of years ago in in the different ways. But the kernel count method, to give you an an indication, but it it has some drawbacks. I mean, when you think about kernel depth versus, you know, hand harvesting and weighing, any brief comments about trying to get a handle on that and, how much you really wanna read into some of these, yield estimates?

Jeff Coulter:

Well, I think you can get fairly accurate by the kernel estimate method. So basically, what that involves is you go out there, you har harvest all the ears in 1 1 thousandth of an acre. And then, on every 5th year or so, you count the number of rows per year and then kernels per row, and then you calculate the average. So now you know the number of years per acre, you know the, rows per year, kernels per row. And then, based on that, you're able to calculate how many kernels per acre you're gonna have.

Jeff Coulter:

And then what you do is you divide that number by the number of kernels per bushel. And kernels per bushel is estimated. For today's hybrids under good conditions, they're gonna be, tip well, they're gonna typically be 75,000 to 85,000 kernels per bushel for today's hybrids. Under exceptional drought stress, very small kernels, it may take 90,000 kernels to produce a bushel. On the other hand, if you got very large kernels, then due to good growing conditions and maybe a low plant population, then it may only take 70,000 kernels to produce a bushel.

Jeff Coulter:

So you can get accurate on the kernel account, but then what you what the trick is is trying to estimate the, how many kernels per bushel. You know? So you're probably looking at somewhere between 70,500,85,000, depending on the kernel size. And it's it's still kinda tough to estimate that, because we still got quite a bit of the grain filling period left, You know? But I think that I think this can get you, you know, fairly close within reason.

Jeff Coulter:

At minimum, it can get you out there to look at the ears and the pullback on the tips and that type of thing. You know, you can calculate a number, but you can also just look at the ears and kinda eyeball it. And in a lot of cases, you know, one can tell if it's gonna be, you know, 200 bushel, 220 bushel corn just by looking at the ears, and past experience. So I, you know, you kinda can take it for what it is, but I think, you know, if you really wanna know what your yield's gonna be, it's good to get out in the field, walk them, and actually assess what your plant population is and, what the years look like.

Dave Nicolai:

I guess, last thing in in terms of that, you guys have a lot of variability. But when you're out in the field, I think we touched on a little bit before we talked about, some of the symptomology. We had some concerns obviously with the rainfall and nitrogen, but, you know, we're gonna start to see translocation in, mobility, you know, in terms of the plant. So those lower leaves on a corn plant, they're gonna change. And so it might not all be nitrogen and sulfur.

Dave Nicolai:

There could be other other factors, but normal maturity and and so forth. So it becomes a little bit more dicey as to as to what to pin it down at at this point, isn't it?

Jeff Coulter:

Yeah. You know, I think nitrogen deficiency is gonna be a big part of it. What we see with the senescence on the lower leaves and, you know, that's gonna be exasperated as we get closer to the harvest here. You know, something to keep an eye on is gonna be stock quality. So, you know, you wanna, like, try to push this push on the stocks at your level or even cut them off and look at the the pith at the base of the plant as we get closer to harvest, you know, in stocks that are hollow on the inside or that break easily when they're pushed over, you know, that's an indication that, you know, they're at higher risk for stock lodging and that we'd wanna harvest those fields earlier.

Jeff Coulter:

So, you know, the areas of the fields that have been under stress either due to water, excess water, and or nitrogen deficiency, and especially corn on corn, these are gonna be scenarios where, you know, you might wanna take a look and kind of assess the standability of the crop before harvest.

Dave Nicolai:

Thanks, Jeff. We're gonna switch over and bring in, Seth. So, Jeff, if you can hang on for us a little bit, if we have questions at the end, that would be great or last comments. Seth Nave was able to join us. He's at a at a meeting out of state, but he was able to get up early enough and and and join us on this soybean situation here across the state of Minnesota.

Dave Nicolai:

So, Seth, I know that a lot of folks have been estimating, soybean yield. The DTN, digital crop tour occurred, and they're forecasting, 51.4 bushels per acre yield in Minnesota. But I wanna go back and talk about the crop progress report because it indicated as of Monday that, blooming in Minnesota had reached 96%. Soybeans setting pods were at 78%. The very interesting thing here is that they indicated that that was 9 days behind both last year and the average.

Dave Nicolai:

Now the crop itself was 64% good to excellent, but I've heard that before from other people. Any comments on that? Is is that expected, unusual? Do we need to worry about it, or will things catch up? But, we still got a ways to go yet here, don't we?

Seth Naeve:

For sure. So, yeah, this is this is a really unique year, and I think we can basically trace this delayed, reproductive phases on onto this kind of coolish temperatures we've had over the past month or so. It's it's a pretty good description of what we always talk about as soybean agronomists that that flowering is really driven pretty primarily by day length and that the the crop gets up and going. We've got a kind of a juvenile period in soybean in the northern states that keep us from from flowering right away, but we get flowering relatively early. And it's relatively predictable, based on day length.

Seth Naeve:

But then heat units really start to kick in towards the end of the year. So increasingly through the summer, heat units become more important for, those developmental stages, than day length. And so, you can see if you look at the charts for development in Minnesota that we we were right on schedule through July. And then starting in early August, then we started to slip a little bit and now we're, we're back to maybe, you know, like, like USDA says 9 days behind. So it's, it's, it's noticeable.

Seth Naeve:

You can see it in the fields. The crop is behind. This is separate from the other issue that we have is short beans this year. That is a combination of cool temperatures with the wet weather. But both of those factors are important.

Seth Naeve:

I would say it's I I you you asked a lot of questions, so I'm gonna ramble on just a little bit here. But, the importance of this delay is really critical for us. It basically is shifting this reproductive phase a little bit more. And Enable Saruto is a visiting professor that's working in my lab, and he's been leading a a project to look at the critical period in soybean. So the time period that's most important for for yield establishment in soybean.

Seth Naeve:

And we're starting that right now, kind of this r four. R five is really and r five and a half is really the most critical period. So we're really at the peak of that critical period in soybean. And so, this is the time and it, you know, it makes sense. We've always talked about August makes beans, but we're really in probably the most important week or weeks, in soybean development right now.

Seth Naeve:

And this is when the crop is really made. So if we go back to r four, we pretty much that's the beginning of the critical period. And we pretty much had at least our rows closed by that time. So the crop was at least capturing all the light out there. We didn't have a lot of wasted light just hitting the ground at r four.

Seth Naeve:

It would have been nice to have it earlier to build a little bit more machine, to make the yield at the end. But but having it by r four is is the critical piece. And now it's really this weather we've had this week and next are really gonna make this yield for us. So, it's it's an important time. I think if we've got good warm temperatures over the weekend is really gonna help.

Seth Naeve:

Cool temperatures coming in the longer term is not gonna help us very much. And it's gonna kind of hold the crop back just a little bit more and and drag it on. So just to kind of round round out this timing thing, yes, this delay is gonna continue to shift all the way through. Even though photoperiod is important for, the, you know, setting the end period and maturity, We're we're mostly on heat units, by the end. And so, it's basically gonna delay maturation a few days.

Seth Naeve:

It's not gonna be 9 days, but we're gonna be delayed. And so as long as we have good temperatures, as moderate temperatures, and we we we hold with with good you know, we've got good soil moisture. So if we have good moderate temperatures all the way through the end of September, we're gonna be okay. But if we get hit by an early frost or we've got other problems or just more cold weather, could really, you know, cause us some problems.

Dave Nicolai:

Typically, you know, we get continued growth in the month of August, and and you'll get, you know, other branching and so forth that it starts out. And so subsequently, you'll have, beans, you know, at some point here at various maturities in terms of size and and and development and so forth. Now we've had some rain in places, you know, places Southern Minnesota had in the inch, but now we're getting more scattered. Is is that gonna be a factor people have to look at as well as in the fact that we talked about variability, in the field, but variability within the plant itself, in the soybean plant, consideration of, you know, going to harvest here as you take samples and you make those decisions whether you have large beans, small beans, green beans, you know, you know, etcetera. Is that gonna be more impactful, this year as things drag out?

Seth Naeve:

Well, I'll turn it on your question on its head. That's actually beneficial to soybean, and this is where the yield comes from. This is how we get good yields is those those late developing seeds. So I've had a really large bone to pick with a lot of folks that talk about flower retention and pod retention early on. Everybody wants to make soybean into a corn plant that's you know, we set yields early on, and it's absolutely not true.

Seth Naeve:

There's a bunch of research money going into a stupid study on on maintaining pods and and flowers and plants. It's just a waste. It's an absolute waste of money because soybean is source limited. And so that's what we're talking about. We're talking about this period right now where this plant needs to just crank out a bunch of energy and start making seeds, and it's really just happening now.

Seth Naeve:

And the the soybean has plenty of pods and plenty of seeds out there. People shouldn't be concerned about limited numbers of pods unless they were in a really stressed area or like Jeff says, is in some tough areas within fields that were drowned out and the the soybean the crop was really delayed or in replant areas. And we can talk about that later. But there's the that that soybean, even though it's short, there's a lot of pods out there. There's an opportunity to fill these things, and and we could have exceptional yields.

Seth Naeve:

Soybean seeds can grow. And, and Jeff mentioned this too, is, is the, the seed size isn't critical in corn, but the seed size is really the flex in soybean and we're, we could have exceptionally large seed in some of these plants that are short with low pod set. If we have good weather, obviously we've got good soil moisture. So we could have good, very good yields in these areas, much better than it might look based on this, you know, kind of shortish plant. Every farmer will agree that short soybeans can produce very high yields.

Seth Naeve:

There's no question about it. The the plant hasn't wasted any extra energy making extra vegetative material this year. If we have good conditions, it's going to crank out some really good yields in those areas. And lastly, I'd just like to, you know, remind folks that even though we have a lot of heavy soils in Minnesota, every farm has some place that probably is a little bit sandy or lighter soils or hilltops that always get nicked by, by shortage of rain during August. And we're gonna find out the importance of those, of of, of a full, soil profile and the value, you know, the value of that this year.

Seth Naeve:

It could very well, outweigh some of those low, drowned out areas just by some of these lighter soils. So extending on what Jeff said earlier about drone imagery and calculating areas and fields, I think that's the kind of thing that farmers, if they really are interested in this, they can do it in soybean too, is they could take a look at their fields and look at those drown out areas or replant areas and and calculate a yield on those, and then look at their normal average yields. But then they should also look at areas of their fields that are generally, lower yields because they have a coarse textured soil and and low, soil water holding capacity. Those areas of fields are gonna yield better than normal. And so, maybe maybe they can, maybe some of this will even out in some fields.

Dave Nicolai:

2 quick things. I'm wondering, Phyllis, if you would mind to put in the chat the link for the home page strategic farming. If, there was a comment somebody wants to know where to go and to find past events, recordings, and and so forth, that would be good, or a link. But last thing here, Seth, if you're gonna go out in the field and scout, in addition to yield, okay, are there some other things that you need to be looking at in terms of plant health, soybeans? Typically, right now, we're all worried about soybean aphids.

Dave Nicolai:

And in fact, earlier in the chat, we we did we can put it up again. There's a link to a really good crop news about soybean aphids that was, came out this this past month on 13th by doctor Bob Cook and other authors as well. But that that is, causing some consternation, obviously, and and yield reductions and have people have to scout for that. But in addition to aphids, are there some other plant, things to consider, in terms of of health and development and so forth to help you guide in terms of perhaps even a year from now in terms of selection?

Seth Naeve:

Absolutely. And so I'm probably gonna get on my horse here a little bit and or soapbox and be a little bit preachy about this, but hang on. I, you know, this is really, really critical because it in some ways we have a real opportunity this year because we're we have an environment that could really produce a lot of, disease organisms that could really tug on our soybean yields this year. I don't know what's gonna be the the end result of this, but there's clearly a potential. Farmers should know what they have in their fields.

Seth Naeve:

Every farmer is going to be sold a whole bunch of crap over the winter to protect their crop from some disease or, or organism out there. And honestly, if farmers don't know what they have, they shouldn't be buying something to protect them from that thing, whatever that thing is. And every, every salesman is going to tell them that they're, they're losing yield by some organism, But the farmers really need to determine whether that's an issue for them or not. And and they shouldn't be buying stuff, to protect them from stuff that they don't have, in their fields. And this would be a really good year to identify you know, it could be the worst case scenario for some diseases.

Seth Naeve:

And, you know, it doesn't mean that they're not gonna they're not gonna get other diseases in other years, but this could be a good test for farmers to really identify what they have in those fields and what the variability is. And, farmers are farming across a lot of fields and a lot of geographies and a lot of soil types. They should know which fields have which problems, in order for them to to be able to to manage those fields in the next year. These aren't problems they could solve this year, but these are this would be a really great time for them to identify what they've got going on in these fields. Sorry for my

Dave Nicolai:

No. No. That's that's that's fine. I'm I'm going to just ask you one last question here on whether you think they're, whether this is actually, going to happen necessarily, but, the USDA is estimating 49 bushels per acre here. The DTN on their digital is estimating 51.4.

Dave Nicolai:

Is that all within the realm of possibility? Obviously, every farm is gonna be different. Every field is gonna be different, but these are averages across the state.

Seth Naeve:

Yeah. I'm and I'm totally with Jeff here. The question is all about variability within fields. That's really the question here is is we're gonna have such ranges within fields that it's it's really difficult, for anybody to estimate these things. And so I think these estimates are going to be overall, the estimates are going to be poor estimates than they normally are because of the variability within fields.

Seth Naeve:

And then we have variability at larger scales county level, and then we have variability across the state that's that's gonna be large this year. So these things are all, lead to more air in these things. So and these are honestly just absolute guesses. And re and as I just wanna remind everybody, the yield is being formed today and tomorrow and next week. So whatever number there is today, really kinda gives us, you know, what we have out there today is is a good indication of what our potential is.

Seth Naeve:

But everything else is a guess. So it's it's all gonna happen from here out. We could have 40 and we can have, you know, we could have 60. So let's let's, let's hope for the latter, and, see what we get. But I, I honestly do think that we could be, I, I think we're gonna be reminded of, of how important water is in August.

Seth Naeve:

And we're gonna learn a lot this year about how critical those those critical rainfalls are to a crop. And when we've got good soil moisture, we're not gonna be limited. And this could produce a pretty amazing crop in some of those areas that we've we've struggled in in the past.

Dave Nicolai:

Okay. Very good. Jeff, you're still with us. Any other thoughts that you had, on on corn before we, close it out today that we didn't touch on?

Jeff Coulter:

No. I think we pretty much covered it all.

Dave Nicolai:

Okay. Great. And, you know, the good thing is we can communicate people through, crop news. So as things develop weather wise, things that are impactful on the crop, whether they be weed, insect, disease, and so forth. Certainly, that's another avenue of communication.

Dave Nicolai:

Seth and I are involved in a a podcast, a Minnesota CroppCast, and, we have different guest speakers including another one coming up this next week, Bob Cook, in terms of soybean aphids as well. Seth, any last, thoughts that you had or things that we didn't touch on?

Seth Naeve:

No. I just I you know, since Dave didn't ask, I'm here in San Francisco today, and so I'm, I'm, I'm taking part in a soy connect meeting, and it's a grew it's a it's a large meeting. Several 100 participants come from all over the world. We have folks from 62 countries here, and they're soybean purchasers. And so we're connecting purchasers and sellers.

Seth Naeve:

So all the big exporters and food bean and companies are exporting, and and I'm running into people that I have known for 25 years here in in my position here at the university. So it's it's always a really good meeting. We're trying to get rid of these, soybeans and soybean meal. You know, there's the prices are really depressing and farmers are super depressed about their soybean pricing. We're gonna produce a lot of soybean meal that we have to get rid of in this, country.

Seth Naeve:

So, I just encourage everybody to to buy some more pigs and chicken and feed some more animals. I think that's the best the best thing we can all do is, feed some more animals and and eat more meat. That'd be a good use for our our, our soybeans. May maybe not good for your health, but it's good for it's good for our soybean prices.

Dave Nicolai:

Well, thank you, Seth. You've done a a wonderful job for getting up 2 hours earlier than our time at, 5:30 in the morning to, to join us here. So we appreciate, your your attendance via Zoom. So it works out very well. So, again, we wanna close off this program.

Dave Nicolai:

We wanna thank, everyone here for attending Strategic Farming, and the our field notes. We also wanna thank again our sponsors, the Minnesota Soybean Research and Promotion Council, along with the Minnesota Corn Research and Promotion Council. This is our last, session of the year on on field notes. We always reserve the the right because of Zoom. If there are situations that do develop and warrant, we'll we'll be back back at it certainly, with a with a Zoom call, and we can do that in situations with that.

Dave Nicolai:

Again, we wanna thank you for attending, not only today, but for this this past season. We'll be doing strategic farming, with some other longer sessions, coming up here in in the wintertime, So make sure to you that you, have an opportunity to attend that and go to the page, and it will let everybody know, about those, issues as, as well. So, again, thank you again for attending.