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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.
Morning, everyone, and welcome to, Strategic Farming Field Notes. So this is our second session of the growing season so far. Today, we'll be talking about planting progress and decisions after a pretty cold spring. We've had some frost here, there, and especially this morning too for some folks. So hopefully, this is a timely topic for a lot of people here.
Anthony Hanson:So first off, just wanna go over a few kind of starting tip, especially if you're new here. But basically, this is something where we have a few featured guests. We're gonna go over kind of a conversational setup with them on kinda all these topics we'll be talking about here today. But just a couple webinar tips quick if you do need them. We're here to answer questions, have discussions.
Anthony Hanson:So there is a q and a box at the bottom of your screen. If you have a questionnaire, please use that. The chat, you leave that for technical issues. So, please use that that q and a box if you do have questions, and then you can hover your mouse near the bottom if you aren't seeing that. Also, you log off today, there should be a quick survey.
Anthony Hanson:We just had to set that up again. So if you're here last week, that may not have worked for you, but we'll have that set up for you now, it sounds like. And this session is being recorded, so this will be posted to your favorite streaming service. So if you can't catch this, in future weeks or you have to leave early today, you can check that out on whatever you use for podcasts, and the full session will be there for you. So again, welcome to today's Strategic Farming Field Notes program.
Anthony Hanson:These sessions are brought to you by University of Minnesota Extension and generous support, from from the Minnesota farm families through Minnesota Soybean Research and Promotion Council as well as Minnesota Corn Research and Promotion Council. So for today, we have, two guests on. We have Jeff Coulter. He is our corn extension agronomist. And also Matt Farr.
Anthony Hanson:He is one of our regional extension educators, and he'll be talking a little bit more about the soybean side of things today. And I'm Anthony Hanson. I'll be your moderator today, also a regional extension educator based out of Morris. So to start us off, Jeff, do wanna you give an overview about what you've been hearing just about the season so far for planting and, really just how has this cold been affecting folks kind of across the planting season, but then also especially up to today? I know a lot of people are gonna be wondering out here.
Anthony Hanson:I know there's no frost on the roofs, windows, and, they might be concerned. But, how are things going in the corn corn world with, the cold here?
Jeff Coulter:Yeah. Thanks, Anthony. Well, as you know, it's been a a really early start to the planting season this year, and planting, proceeded at record pace. We're giving that crop in in a real timely manner. But it's been cold.
Jeff Coulter:It's been cooler, and, it's also been dry. Finally, we get picked up some, needed moisture, which has been a great help. But, you know, it's, but I'd say overall, we're maybe slightly ahead of normal just due to having that corn planted so much earlier than normal, and just being there. You know, we've had some issues of, some frost, including last night in a lot of places. We've also had issues of sand blasting, having some young seedlings kinda cut off by blowing sand particles, that type of thing.
Jeff Coulter:You know, for the most part, I the corn's growing back just fine. Hasn't been an issue. You know, this frost last night, you know, it's gonna be variable. Probably look for you know, take a look and see how everything's going. But, for the most part, that corn should grow back just fine.
Jeff Coulter:Corn that's got damaged by frost last night is gonna definitely look a little on the rougher side over the next few days, as that, as that corn tries to break through and is the old dead leaves are kinda stuck on to the the new growing tissue. That corn is gonna look rough for the next few days, but, they're talking high temperatures later this weekend, early next week. So, we just need some heat and some wind, and that corn will grow right through it. Probably won't affect the stand much at all.
Anthony Hanson:And related to that too, this may be a reminder for some folks because some might be wondering about, questions just about nutrient uptake, especially we run into some issues there when it's really cold sustained for a while. But are we potentially gonna be seeing that in some areas, or is it really just kind of this, no shot of cold or two and not really enough to really have issues there?
Jeff Coulter:I think if there's issues with nutrient uptake, that would have happened by now. You know, obviously, we need moisture and we need temperature for nutrient uptake, and we've been kinda it's been kinda cold and definitely dry in areas, especially near the soil surface. So under those conditions, it is possible to see some phosphorus deficiency in corn even though the soil may be testing high in phosphorus. And also, for things like potassium was as well, that may be an issue. But for the most part, those early season, nutrient deficiencies are generally kinda cosmetic, and the corn grows out of it.
Jeff Coulter:And once we start getting some temperature and moisture, it's able to access, the nutrients and, you know, recover. You know? Up to this point, the corn's been relying on that temporary seminal root system. And over the next week or so, the corn is gonna start, you know, really developing those nodal roots. So, and those nodal roots are gonna be the primary root system.
Jeff Coulter:They're gonna be able to access nutrients that are in the soil better.
Anthony Hanson:Have you heard anything about, stand issues so far this year? Has it been relatively good? I know, you know, some fields were maybe not in the best condition. They're pretty clumpy. We didn't really have rain at that time.
Anthony Hanson:Any, you know, word about issues like that, or were we kinda catching that rain just in time where even if something was planted in maybe a semi poorly tilled field, it's still kinda caught up just because that rain kinda smooth things out for us?
Jeff Coulter:Yeah. I would say for the most part, the stands are way better than normal. Just the soil conditions were dry. I don't think we had as much, clumps, clods compared to normal years just because the soil was drier. My concern maybe would be for some of the very late planted stuff, which, you know, corn may be planted in in May, you know, May 10 around that window in dry soils.
Jeff Coulter:Some of that later planted corn may have had to just sit there for a while until it it picked up moisture. I think subsoil has had enough moisture, but the top has been very dry as we've seen with, when the wind blows, you know, it's been kicking up a lot of dirt in the air, that type of thing. So, yeah. But, fortunately, a lot of places picked up rain this weekend, so I think, we're on track to have a pretty good year.
Anthony Hanson:Yeah. Before those rains, definitely are seeing some fields, especially out here in Western Minnesota where there was definitely dirt blowing off. You could definitely see or rather, you couldn't see a lot off in the distance there. So that was, yeah, pretty telling for some of those fields that got planted, you know, a little earlier in May here. Yeah.
Anthony Hanson:It was kinda tough to see. But, one of the other questions we had come in, and just a reminder that sometimes if people have questions on this program either when they register or through the q and a here, we get to tackle those now. And one of the ones that came in was kinda more on crop rotation. So this is semi related to planting, but, you know, besides corn, what else can we add in a rotation? And in your case, Jeff, how does corn do in some of these other crop rotations if you're getting outside the typical corn and soybean rotation?
Jeff Coulter:Yeah. So there can be a lot of benefits to adding a third crop. You know, some farmers are adding oat to their rotation. Others are are adding wheat to that corn soybean rotation. And I think generally what's been shown, in some of the research, there's been a long term research project going on at Waseca, Lamberton, and and Grand Rapids.
Jeff Coulter:And I think in that study and also, what some farmers have been reporting to us is that, you know, by adding a third crop, they're able to, in many cases, have greater net return compared to the three year rotation. But you gotta average it out over those three years. You know? You may be a little lower in net return in one year versus the other, but, over that three year rotation, having that third crop helps break up some pest cycles, that kind of thing. I think the there's a big advantage to it.
Jeff Coulter:We probably need to be thinking more about that. But, you know, from a farmer standpoint, you know, if you're you need to be thinking about where are you gonna sell that third crop. Right? So if you're in Far Southern Minnesota and you're growing, oat or wheat, you know, where are you gonna have to truck that to to sell that? That kind of thing.
Jeff Coulter:So having that all figured out in advance would be a good thing.
Anthony Hanson:How about, corn after alfalfa for some of the folks that, can grow that? Just any comments and sort of nutrient needs there? And, obviously, nitrogen, we talk about credits there, but, yeah, anything for folks getting into that side of things.
Jeff Coulter:Yeah. Well, generally, first year corn following alfalfa yields up to about 10% more than corn following corn, and also better than corn following soybean. It's basically the best rotation you can have for for corn. And if one's able to incorporate alfalfa into their system, they get great benefits because you get the nitrogen credit from the alfalfa. That first year corn, you get a big yield boost.
Jeff Coulter:And then that first year corn, maybe you wanna take that corn silage so there's less residue out there. And then the year after that, you could plant corn on corn, but you're not gonna see quite the big yield hit because you got the residue removed with the corn silage. Year after that, you could plant soybean. That's gonna do well after two years of corn, and then you could think about going back into alfalfa, something like that. So, adding alfalfa into the rotation is great benefits.
Jeff Coulter:It's probably one of the best crops for soil health.
Anthony Hanson:How about just looking forward to anything you're keeping an eye on for the corn crop going into, let's say, the next month or so? Any kinda critical periods coming up? Anything weather that would kinda make you pause and think we gotta really keep an eye on it? Or is it, or if things are pretty much demurrage now, are you kind of not as worried for a little bit here?
Jeff Coulter:I think we're in great shape. I think at this point, you know, the soil is generally drier than it has been in some other years. We got this rain, but what does the future bring? Is it gonna be, drier than normal? You know, I'm not seeing much rain in the next seven days.
Jeff Coulter:Also, you know, so we need to think about that, and we need to be timely. Right? So we got these weeds emerging. We wanna get those post emergence applications done before weed height gets four inches. We wanna be timely with our sidedress nitrogen applications, these type of things.
Jeff Coulter:So, it's definitely looking like a good year.
Anthony Hanson:Alright. Thanks, Jeff. I think that's actually a good cue for Matt Farr to come on and talk about the soybean side. I know you were interested in talking about the herbicide question a little bit too. We talked about that on last week's program.
Anthony Hanson:But, no, I think Jeff's comment too. That's a good reminder. If your weeds are under four inches, that's a good time to be looking at those post emergent, herbicide applications. So, Matt, did you have any, quick thoughts on that before we jump into the the soybean side?
Matt Pfarr:Sure. I think, you know, more and more, we're inviting as egg professionals, all our crop producers to be a little bit flexible. This question of herbicide resistant waterhemp is one that's quite vexing. Of course, we still have woolly cup grass. We have proso millet.
Matt Pfarr:We have giant ragweed. Any of these weeds, the key is to be on the front side for control. Sometimes as early as three weeks after we've got our pre down, we could be coming with our post. And we don't need to be able to see weeds from the highway when we're driving by at 50 miles an hour to spray. Right, Anthony?
Matt Pfarr:We should be more on the front side there. A lot of these products have some soil residual activity. We're overlapping group fifteens in soybeans a lot of the time to continue to suppress, you know, those seedling and germination type events we have after rainfall. And so I think producers should be flexible. And, honestly, if we're out there planting soybeans on April 15 or April 20, we have to be somewhat open to the idea of maybe two post passes, which as we look at things like Liberty and Enlist and some of our grass killing her besides, there can be antagonism, and we try to do a single post pass anyway.
Matt Pfarr:So maybe we optimize that, you know, and think about maybe a two post pass if needed, or for sure, the headlands can be touched up here as we get into June. So I'm inviting folks to think about as we finish out the month of May here. We've had some rain in a lot of the region this week. When we can get back in the field, what does that post program look like for you so that you can stay ahead of these problem weeds, especially waterhemp?
Anthony Hanson:Alright. So you kinda got into this a little bit. Soybean planting, some of it was very early this year. Don't know if some folks were staggered a bit more. Have you heard kinda what the overall progress was across the planting season?
Anthony Hanson:Because I know some of us, we got soybeans in, little later, kinda mid May about, but I know folks like you further down south, you were planting in kinda mid April, it sounded like they're earlier.
Matt Pfarr:Absolutely. I've I've got a bit of a recap for us, Anthony, if you'll allow. Sure. And, of course, we could say we're a bit ahead, especially in Southern Minnesota, as you mentioned. And that really started I would say the week of Easter, you know, was that April.
Matt Pfarr:But by the time some folks were out there very far South Central Minnesota, but a lot of folks really were going hard already on April 13, a week after Easter. Honestly, we we were seeing a lot of crop planted then. Some folks have been taking this sort of spiel to heart that you can plant your soybeans ahead of your corn or at the same time because of the hardiness of that crop in terms of sitting in the ground or emergence in a lot of situations. Honestly, the only folks that weren't really out there that week of April 14 were more the South and Southeast. They had up to three inches that came up.
Matt Pfarr:There was a storm from Iowa that kinda clipped from the South to Southeast. I'm thinking of, like, Austin, South Of Rochester, those areas. And, honestly, that delayed them until May. And that wasn't really a bad deal for them in that area this year because when they finally got fit conditions to cultivate and go ahead and seed at the April or early May, they were planting into some pretty nice seed beds. But folks that could did go out and plant.
Matt Pfarr:And, honestly, there was a band from maybe Mankato, which is where I'm based as a regional educator, all the way to Hastings, where there was just a huge push of corn that went in April 20. And I think a pretty good jig of beans as well went in that week of April 20. Now as we finish that week, we had a really pretty heavy ceiling rain on April, whatever that Sunday to Monday was the following week. So the only crop that we were most concerned about went in kind of that Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. There was sort of, spot showers that whole weekend, and some ground had been tilled ahead because those showers were not planned.
Matt Pfarr:And we we saw a lot of soybeans and corn get put in in less than ideal conditions, and ultimately, some of these farms set up for crusting. So I think that was the big story of emergence. It was yes. There was some cold, but we didn't see widespread freezing. Not a ton of seed injury in the ground, surprisingly, because we had enough warmth right after those few days after planting.
Matt Pfarr:But the big story for me was was hearing about all the crusting on the typical problem farms that maybe don't have as much drainage or maybe have a higher clay content. So the rotary hose were moving across Southern Minnesota. Right? And so some folks use them every year. Some folks had to pull them out of the back of the lot in the grove and sort of get the rust off them, but they were moving.
Matt Pfarr:And, honestly, a timely application of rotary hoeing, to begin May really set us up for better emergence in some of those fields planted, again, right before that April 27 ceiling rain we had.
Anthony Hanson:Yeah. So that's a kinda quite a spread in weather conditions we're looking at there. I kinda remember that too where that rain was welcome, but also, yeah, it was a a lot moving quick before that. So my question now is with all the cold weather we had, kinda similar for talking with Jeff on corn, how were soybeans doing? But then also is this frost some folks said this morning, is that something for concern on the soybean side Depending on It's always a concern.
Anthony Hanson:Was.
Matt Pfarr:Sure. It's always a concern. So we had again, soybeans planted as early as maybe the April on the very early side, and we had a lot going in that week of April 20. We're less concerned about emergence and and timing on that. But I do wanna take a step back as a lot of the folks who turn in tune into our program on strategic farming or per egg professionals and talk about proper sampling techniques when the question is, from the producer side, how good is my stand?
Matt Pfarr:What am I gonna do going forward? Do I need any intervention at this point? And so, making a random sample as we go across the field is super important for soybeans. On Jeff's corn side, I always like to do the thousandth of an acre. So on 30 inch rows, I think it's, you know, 17 feet five inches, or for me, it's about 17 steps with my boots.
Matt Pfarr:And then just counting, and then you get 34 is 34,000, 29 is 29,000. That we know that that's that's how we stage our corn. For soybeans, we're counting a little bit higher pop. So I like to take a 10 foot area of row, and then I have a factor I divide by just to say what's that into the row feet and the acre. So it's gonna be more row feet if we're on fifteens.
Matt Pfarr:You know, half of that on thirties. Whatever your spacing is, it's pretty easy to calculate. If you take forty three five sixty divided by the square feet an acre divided by your row spacing. Right? So you go.
Matt Pfarr:You you start kinda walking across the field, take a random number of steps, keeping the eyes up. That's gonna help us get a random sample as opposed to a selective sample, you know, of what every row is giving us across the field. So once we have our book of numbers and we see, oh, we've got 40,000 or 50,000 plants per acre that have actually established for a soybean crop. Now we might wanna think about kinda overseeding, some additional crop out there to kinda beef up our stand to get a minimum of, like, 70 to 80,000. Now Jeff and Seth Nave, they've really published over the years a lot of good resources where you look at populations of soybeans, populations of corn, and you can tolerate a significant amount of stand loss from what what you've seeded before you see less than 90% yield potential.
Matt Pfarr:And as we're getting into the May, the calendar date is also creeping up and causing some yield losses just because of delayed planting. We're having less season to grow our crop and produce that yield. So everything like that needs to be balanced out. But I'll just remind everyone, the first thing we need to do is make a really good random sample of how many plants are out there in our field and what's really going on. And Anthony, you know that that's a lot different than just kinda looking and kind of telling the story.
Matt Pfarr:The data is really what we should guide ourselves with as egg professionals.
Anthony Hanson:Yeah. No. That's good reminder. I mean, whether it's a stand evaluation similar from my end if I'm dealing with pest issues, Yeah. That's kinda good to get across the field there and make sure you're not just looking at little pocket or just glancing at things.
Anthony Hanson:Yeah. How about kind of the cold tolerance of soybean? How does that I know that question's come up a lot this season already here, but if you wanna comment a little bit about, how the soybean plant does, especially depending on what growth stages and earlier on here.
Matt Pfarr:Yes. I think, you know, we gotta remember soybeans emerge in an epigeal way. So they have a hypocotyl arch where they're pulling the whole seed or the cotyledons up through the soil surface. And that certainly makes them hardy in terms of their emergence, but it also makes them a little bit susceptible to that arch getting damaged. And you're an entomologist, Anthony.
Matt Pfarr:Right? So if we have some sort of cutworm feeding or other insect feeding out there, if it nicks that hypocotyl arch, that can take out the that plant immediately. Frosting can be similar a little bit, especially some of our preemergence herbicides. We've really gotta pull those back out of the tank when we start to see some soybean emergence. Surprisingly, with all the dust we had blowing around in the first couple weeks of May with the dry and wind we had, abrasion resistance is fairly high with soybeans.
Matt Pfarr:Yes. It will make them look a little sickly for a couple days after they get abraded, but they typically tend to bounce back quite well. So your evaluation for soybeans, just like corn, is your growing point. And I think this is where, as Jeff mentioned, corn has the advantage because the growing points at the end of that node, the mesocotyl there is is two inches below ground or or three quarter of an inch. Excuse me.
Matt Pfarr:So we have the choleptile there. And as long as that's fine, you're good. So whether that's traffic or freezing, corn can be hardy. Soybeans, you have your growing points are all above ground at those cotyledonary nodes. And then your first buds, which are your unifoliate nodes, those are the only places you can grow new tissue from.
Matt Pfarr:So if it's a hail event, if it's a frost event, if it's any other type of damage, if we get kinda cut below those growing points, we're not gonna have success with that plant. Otherwise, if there's we can regrow the whole stem from there. So that's where, again, you're doing your selective sampling or sorry, your random sampling. Look at those plants. Do they have any living growing points left that you can produce you know, effective soybean plant from those saplings?
Anthony Hanson:Yeah. So one of the other questions I kinda posed to Jeff too was crop rotation. And, Matt, I was wondering what you're hearing on that end of things on the soybean side of things. Anything to keep in mind there? Or next week, we'll talk about cover crops a little more.
Anthony Hanson:But, yeah, for soybean, kinda or any word about just kind of how that might be doing in rotations, basically, whether, you know, you wouldn't make that's sort be planting soybeans after alfalfa. Maybe some folks are, but, anything to keep in mind long term for that, especially when we have some nitrogen credits involved with soybeans too.
Matt Pfarr:Well, we asked them to do quite a job, don't we, Anthony, to always go out there in the corn residue and the root balls and the unevenness? I would say, first of all, we need to evaluate planting depth a little bit too in that rotation because of the residue. I didn't talk about this yet, but yet again this year, I'm hearing a little bit about shouldering where we had such dry topsoil. Jeff mentioned it earlier. Right?
Matt Pfarr:There was good moisture sub, but the topsoil being dry. If our row cleaners got aggressive, we're actually pushing too much of that good soil profile out of the way, and our gauge wheels are sort of shouldering on that planter. We're not achieving great depth there. So that's something that should definitely be evaluated in both crops as well. And for corn, bottom of the seed to the, mesocotl there, and then you add that three quarter inch.
Matt Pfarr:You wanna be at least an inch and a half, really shooting for two inches. Soybeans, try to get anything more than an inch, you know, for planting depth and so forth. You know, you see some people pull off soybean on soybean cropping, though it's rare. I think the reasons are always soybean cyst nematode, some of our seedling diseases out there. Weed control, let's not forget about that.
Matt Pfarr:I mean, water, hemp, and soybean. Yes. Soybean's more competitive than, say, dry bean or maybe sugar beet for weed suppression, but it's still not as effective as as a grain crop, you know, for out competing. And you have less options, you know, as a as a dicot species. Right?
Matt Pfarr:So in in that sense, I think looking at your whole in, I know Jeff this winter was talking quite a bit about how expanding that corn rotation to do two years in a row and then have a soybean crop in there, it's you're getting more soybean yield. I think it was, what, like, percent, Jeff? Just the two year. So, obviously, soybean gets a little bit of a of a benefit, just from having a bit of a disease break. And I think, you know, don't forget about weed control and and what we're doing about the waterhemp.
Matt Pfarr:You know, if we're gonna grow more soybean in the rotation, you have to be aggressive on your weed management.
Anthony Hanson:Alright. Matt, I think I have one more question for you before we wrap up, and this is there could be a bigger one, could be a whole session maybe, but inoculants. And maybe more just we're talking about just some of the basic ones people are using, especially if it's a field they haven't planted in the soybeans before. But I just wanna give a little background there on kind of what's recommended, maybe without getting into all the different kinds of inoculants out there. But yeah.
Anthony Hanson:Just so when someone's looking at that, considering it, what do they gotta be looking at for, options there?
Matt Pfarr:I appreciate that question, Anthony, because I had so many good years, working in industry with our nitrogen fixing bacteria. So soybean being a legume has this evolutionary concept where it's evolved maybe in that coastal area of China where you have sandy soil, not a lot of, you know, rich organic matter there. So in a way to be more competitive, kind of over time, getting a symbiosis going with a nitrogen fixing bacteria that it houses and feeds on the soybean side and in return gets nitrogen from the atmosphere fixed into ammonium, we're doing, something again that's very mutual for both species. So about now it's probably a hundred and twenty five years ago when people first cultivated soybean, they weren't having a lot of success. It was kind of the East Coast of The US, so like the Carolinas.
Matt Pfarr:They brought over some soil from China, and they brought over Bradyrhizobium japonicum bacteria, and that's when they started to get effective nodulation. And then from there, have this industry where now you have liquid inoculant, you have powder peat, and you have granule. A lot of times, the granules are put down with the air seeders. So if we're thinking about North Dakota, where we're using drills and bulk delivery systems, that that can be very effective. And for most other folks, you can order it with your seed treatment.
Matt Pfarr:It's just gonna come in and be more effective that way and sort of, low touch for you. And it's, you know, 2 to $4 an acre to add that inoculant on there. So overall, I think it's a good hedge. Like you said, if you've been away from soybean for a while, nothing else in your rotation is gonna enhance the Bradyrhizobium and increase numbers other than soybean. So you may wanna think about about that.
Matt Pfarr:Right? We're coming out of CRP. We've had a long alfalfa stand followed by a couple years of corn. So now we're thinking four to five years. The longer that you've been away from soybean in that field, the more you should think about inoculating.
Matt Pfarr:And this would apply to other legume crops like dry beans, dry peas. I'm trying to think of a couple other here. Lentils, these are all things that think about inoculant. In my old role, I got to help with this concept for peanuts all the way on the Florida Georgia line to, you know, pulses like lentils, and so forth and dry peas in Saskatchewan. So it does cover quite a wide range of egg production in North America, these legume crops.
Matt Pfarr:They're really good rotation with grain crops. Right? I think we can all agree with that.
Anthony Hanson:Yeah. Alright. Well, thanks, Matt, and, Jeff as well. So, again, I wanna thank everyone for attending today's UMO Extension Field Notes program. And then thanks for the questions that folks sent in there too.
Anthony Hanson:So the survey coming up should have more info for you, for questions if you wanna submit those for future ones here. So, again, we wanna thank our sponsors, Minnesota Soybean Research and Promotion Council, as well as Minnesota Corn Research and Promotion Council. And also next week, we'll be talking about small grains updates and cover crops. So if that's a topic of interest to you, definitely be sure to check-in next week here. And, again, thank you.
Anthony Hanson:Have a great rest of the day, and we'll see you next week.