In the Pod: Soybean Updates

Now that soybeans are harvested, farmers have an opportunity to reflect on the season. But what can be leaned at this point? Ana Carcedo, NDSU Extension Agronomist, has some ideas.

What is In the Pod: Soybean Updates?

The NDSU Extension weekly podcast In the Pod: Soybean Updates delivers timely insights and expert advice on soybean production.

Bruce Sundeen:

You're listening to In The Pod, soybean updates, a weekly trek into the latest soybean information from NDSU Extension. Now that soybeans are harvested, farmers have an opportunity to reflect on the season. But what can be learned at this point? Ana Carcedo, NDSU Extension agronomist, has some ideas. Ana, are there any tools that can help soybean farmers assess their season?

Ana Carcedo:

Now with harvest behind us, I think this is also a really good time to look back at our fields and try to understand what happened. One tool that can help us do that is of course the yield monitor. Yield maps can tell us a lot about how different areas of a field perform. But before we start drawing conclusions from those maps, we need to make sure that the information we are looking at is actually accurate. Most yield monitors work by measuring the force of a grain hitting a sensor inside of the combine.

Bruce Sundeen:

What about accuracy? How reliable is the sensor?

Ana Carcedo:

So there are a few things that can affect the number that we see. First is calibration. This is probably the most important one. If the yield monitor is not properly calibrated, the numbers might not reflect what we are actually harvesting. Another thing to pay attention is the harvesting width. Believe it or not, harvesting just four inches less than the full header width can actually introduce an error of one to 2% in your yield estimates. Then the combined speed is another factor that you should consider. Ideally, you want to stay within the range of speeds you use when you are calibrating the monitor. And then there is something called float delay. Basically, that's the time that it takes the soybeans to travel from the header to the yield sensor. If that timing it's not right, the yield monitor might record the yields in the row part of the field. One thing to check is what happens where your combined passes meet the ends of the row. If the yield data does not line up correctly, that could be a sign that your flow delays needs a little bit of an adjustment.

Bruce Sundeen:

Is it worth all the work to keep yield maps accurate?

Ana Carcedo:

Yield maps are great for showing which part of a field performed better or worse. But sometimes that data needs a little bit of cleaning before we can actually use it to more detail analysis. I think that's a particularly important this year because we saw so much variability because of the drought impact, sometimes even within the same field.

Bruce Sundeen:

Ana, any final thoughts?

Ana Carcedo:

Really, the message I want to leave with you today is that just because harvest is finished, it actually does not mean we're done learning from this crop.

Bruce Sundeen:

Thanks, Ana. Our guest has been Ana Carcedo, NDSU Extension agronomist. You're listening to In The Pod, Soybean Updates, a weekly trek into the latest soybean information from NDSU Extension, supported by the North Dakota Soybean Council.