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The corn and soybean crops in Nebraska appear to be in good shape.  Like much of the Corn Belt, many fields suffered some drowned out spots, but overall the crop looks good for this time of the year.  I would like to remind people that all we have done so far is build the factory.  The crop still has to produce the product.  There are still many management decisions to make yet.  Be on alert for disease and insect problems that could still show up. 

As my Dad--a dry land Nebraska farmer all his life--used to say, “You do not have a crop until it is in the bin”.  Keep on watching your crop.

Crop progress is quite different comparing South Dakota to NW Iowa and SW Minnesota, especially the rolling hills and well-tiled farms of my eastern 2 states I cover. Not having tile on your farm is the most limiting factor to yield I see in my field visits, when it used to be moisture stress. NW Iowa and SW Minnesota have great yield potential, but the pot holes with stunted yellow corn will limit top end. These areas tasseling is all over the board with some fields starting 2 weeks ago and some tassels just starting to come out in some fields. We are also seeing nitrogen and potash deficiencies, mainly from denitrification or some leaching on lighter soils. Yields in South Dakota will be very up and down. To the north, some producers only got about two-thirds of their crops planted (or worse) and soybean planting extended into July. All you can say here is that it has been a tough year!

Soybeans have been growing extremely slow, showing just how little they like excessive soil moisture early in the season. I have been on many calls looking at brown spot and bacterial blight. This should be a good year for producers to split fields and try some fungicide on beans to see if it pays for itself. Just starting to see aphids in my area this past week, but so far numbers are very low.

Much needed rain came early last week in most areas of the mid-south, giving growers some welcome moisture to finish soybean planting. Soybean growth stages range from just being planted to R6 (Full Seed). Early planted dryland beans benefited from the rain as more blooms should allow for more pod set. Many growers I visited with in eastern Arkansas are battling resistant pigweeds; many have post sprayed at least twice, adding different herbicides to their glyphosate in hopes of getting some control. It has not always worked. Many growers are already asking to plant LibertyLink soybeans in 2011 to help with this resistance problem.

Stine corn hybrids are looking very good with high expectations for this coming harvest. Most corn is at full dent and will reach black layer shortly. Expect harvest to begin by the third week of August. Noticed a benefit from new VT3Pro hybrids as compared to VT3 in helping control corn earworm, allowing for better tip fill. Hot dry weather could affect grain fill on some later planted fields, but I expect a very good corn crop overall.

East central Illinois crop conditions are widely varied, with most corn pollinated and grain fill just beginning to nearly done.  I am expecting wide variations in yield due to ponding and nitrogen deficiency. Highest yields will more than likely come from best drained fields and be directly related to root development. Many fields look to have poor root development due to excessive moisture in June. We will just have to see if this could cause harvest issues this fall. Proper hybrid selection for soil type will pay big dividends this fall!

I was out in a soybean field in central Iowa last week and saw my first soybean aphids of the season.  The numbers were low, and they were still hard to spot, but they were there.   For the most part, corn is looking good.  From what I last calculated, we were 200 growing degree units ahead of last year at this time, so for those of you who have kept your maturity diversification and not gone to all shorter season corn it will pay out this year.

Soybean Aphid resistant update

The new soybean aphid resistant soybeans that are out on the market are resistant to aphid biotype 1 and some have resistance to biotype 2.  This resistance comes from the source of Rag 1 and Rag 2 genes.  Researchers have already found that there are 3 biotypes of aphids, so having an aphid-resistant soybean may not be the answer to all of our problems with this pest.