By Bob Streit
Columist, Farm News
Don’t look now but we are approaching the longest day of the, June 21st. This is when soybean plants are normally triggered to start flowering if they have reached the V5 growth stage. At this point a sizeable percentage of the bean plants are behind that schedule due...
We are now getting into the important main part of the growing season. Most of the corn crop in in the V2 to V4 growth stage. The largest corn I have been in so far was actually near Fremont, NE at late V5. So far outguessing the weather has been near impossible....
What are they and why are they here? How do they function on or with plants? Are they a silver bullet or another tool that can help produce higher SB yields? Back in the early 2000s a number of us agronomists and farmers were following the corn and soybean high...
Every year is different as to the planting season, moisture amounts and how normal, cooler than or warmer than normal the environmental conditions are. The 2023 planting is now officially lasting longer than the average season, and due to the extended cool temps and...
I am writing this on Sunday May 7th, so things that may be apparent later in the week remain an unknown by Sunday morning. Here goes: In Television Land over the last fifty years, we have seen many game shows where participants are asked to use their instinct or luck...
Here is wishing everyone a happy last half of April greeting. At this time much of the Midwest recently was blessed with several unseasonably warm days or a week with temps in the upper 70s and even low to mid 80s causing a rapid snow melt and soil warm up. And now a...
A month ago, the question was if March was going to go out as a lion or lamb. It did not take long to find out and observe the closing cliff hanger. Would it be: a day bringing up cold or warm temperature, sixty degrees or below freezing; would it be sunny, cloudy, or...
Spring officially arrived at 5 PM on Sunday afternoon. In central Iowa the weather was 45 to 50 degrees, so it felt like spring. Earlier in the week in way NW Iowa and SE South Dakota the single digit wind chills and the snow banks being 4 ft high and snow piles made...
So far March came in as the proverbial lamb. Will it leave as a lamb or as a lion, growling and snarling in the form of a big, cold blizzard. Here is central Iowa the only snow left is in the form of large snowdrifts around trees or buildings where they once clogged...
It has been a few days since the close of the Iowa Power Show. Years ago, when I first got to participate in the big, late January show we learned it was a week or two of preparation, knowing that we would be losing our speaking voices by the last hour. We got to...