Is anyone else tired of winter already? The cold, the snow and the ice are getting old. A person could head to Florida, but they are still picking up from hurricane Ian. You could move to Texas, but 105 degrees and a 45 mile an hour breeze every day doesn’t sound too inviting. And Phoenix summer time temps get very hot, but it’s a dry heat. So is an oven. Actually, winter doesn’t start for another month. By the first part of December people may be having cabin fever already and looking for an event or conference to attend.
In recent weeks I had been hoping to pay tribute to a fellow with the name of Elvis. It was a champion soybean grower by the name of Ray Elvis Rawson. 15 to 20 years ago Ray Rawson was making headlines for producing high soybean yields in the very unlikely location of northern Michigan. His fields and operations were near the small town of Farwell, which was about the same latitude as St Paul, MN. It was an area with tight clay soils and lots of sand pockets. A group of us made multiple trips to attend his meetings and field days. He was a bulldog of a fellow always pushing himself and others around him, educating them as to how he was outproducing his neighbors by 3X. He had learned how the bean plants act against and cope with stress and would benefit from foliar nutrition. Several groups and companies invited him to the I-states for meetings with all different sized crowds. His eyesight and heart were giving him problems in recent years and he didn’t have much energy left. He passed away about two months ago. A few people from Iowa attended his funeral. He leaves behind his wife and two farming sons.
One year ago, there was still fieldwork being done thru early January. Now with a few days with daily high temps below freezing the frost will start moving downwards. Luckily most areas in the state received between two to five inches of rain, which soaked in quite well. It was not enough to fill the profile, but better than nothing. Most Midwestern growers will have to rely on receiving general rains in the March thru April time frame to generate optimism about the 2023 growing season.
Looking Towards 2023
After the two super wet 2018 and 2019 seasons where 2X the normal rain fell, it was surreal to imagine moving into a very dry second half of 2020 and two full years of rainfall being 40 to 50% of normal. A very high % of the U.S has been in a bad drought, which limited yields. Couple that with record hot and dry conditions over all of Europe, South America and a good portion of Africa. It’s no wonder that grain prices have remained high as grain supplies are being consumed. Apparently, there are brokered periods of small grain shipments from the Ukraine and Black Sea ports. Word from the grain traders was that the loaded ships sat for months with no aeration and much of the cargo ended up getting dumped.
Expect lots of angst among grain traders in many countries if spring conditions are drier than normal. Midwest producers in the Midwest will need to utilize information about what minerals, biologicals and genetics are most likely to help drouth proof their crops next season.
The local crop input meetings have begun with most suppliers remaining cautiously optimistic that the fertilizers, herbicides and seed corn and SBs will be available and will be delivered on time. Will river flow on our major rivers allow enough barge traffic to let supplies reach here before the normal application time?
A Corn Yield Contest Winner
Years ago, Francis Childs from near Manchester IA was winning the Iowa corn growers contest with regularity. I was one of the big doubters that he was actually harvesting all of those bushels. I did see ears from his plot that were air dried, shelled and weighed with very exact gram scale. Completing the calculations told me those yields were possible. In today’s farming world an often-used term was sustainable.
No one group had an exact definition of that term. The new term has evolved becoming regenerative farming. This is where purchased inputs are reduced and there is more reliance on soil biology increasing the availability of minerals in the soil for plant uptake. Doubters of the idea wanted proof of the concept. Now there is one. He is a literally the biggest promoter of Regen farming, 6’ and 6” or 7” and maybe 270 lean lbs., Russell Hedrick of North Carolina. He did not grow up on a farm and had no relatives with ground that he could rent. He farms in an area with adequate rainfall and lots of rolling ground and has been planting into living cover crops to minimize erosion. It was just announced that he won the no-till NCGA dryland corn yield contest at 459 Bu/A. Kudos to him. He will be speaking at the Big Soil Health Event on Dec 5th and 6th in Cedar Falls, telling the attendees about how he manages his crops. He stays quite busy and began a small whiskey producing and marketing company after he discovered that liquid corn had more value than did dry corn. He raises several old open pollinated lines such as Bloody Butcher and Country Gentleman to use in producing the richer and unique taste that whiskey connoisseurs favor. He also procured a portable grain mill to allow distillers to sample his ground corn varieties and chose their favorites to use in brewing for identified customers.
December 7th and 8th Conference in Webster City
Speaking of conferences, the registrations for our large Webster City meeting in the Briggs Woods Conference center continue to arrive from 11 different states. The venue is first class as will be the meals and speakers. Both day’s programs will have a number of very informative and interesting speakers, with a number of them being nationally known. People are still welcome to call and add their names to the list. Due to meal planning we have to provide the chefs with an expected guest number. Those showing up without alerting us to their presence may not be guaranteed their beef or pork chop meal.
Anyone reading this article that has not seen the speaker list could just go to our website www.CentralIowaAg.com and click on ‘News’ and then ‘Events’ to view the Agenda, Speaker’s Bio, and the Sign Up Form. If you have any questions email Info@CentralIowaAg.com or call Carol Streit at 515-231-6710. CCA CEUs will be offered for those needing them.
Thoughts on the 2022 Corn Crop in IA and Surrounding States
The past summer was one of the hottest and driest in the last fifty years. In recent history farmers that were involved with the 1977, 1983, 1988, 2012 cropping and in places, 2017, serve as landmark years where crop yields dropped substantially below trend line yields. So why were corn yields better than expected for most growers? Once factor may have been the output of the western wildfires. Increased CO2 levels promote increased plant growth. Were our CO2 levels increased during their grain fill periods? Counter to media reports, CO2 is not a poison.
The main factor to remember is that seed corn companies recognized the lack of drought tolerance in many of their race horse hybrids. Root architecture and physiological shortfalls would have been two factors at fault. Most of the corn breeding firms funded and staffed corn breeding stations further west where corn was grown primarily under irrigation. They planted potential hybrids candidates and inbreds developed at these select sites and sister stations in normal fashion. Then beginning in June, they would shut the water off to have their plants go thru this manufactured drought. The note taking would continue with total yield and yield to moisture ratios sort out the winners and losers.
Thirty years ago, the pollen shed stage was reached at whatever date, followed by silk emergence five to seven days later. With today’s hybrids we often see silks emerging before pollen shed starts. Because of the pollen shed of the plant being coordinated with its silk emergence became part of the selection process we no longer see entire fields blanking out.
Existing Cropping Challenges
At the upcoming ISU ICM conference there are three topics that will be discussed where nature has allowed natural selection to overcome control tactics or products developed to control them. First would be SCN and the pervasive use of the Fayette (88788 Source) in 90 to 95% of the available SCN resistant varieties. There are a few varieties that have been developed using Peking source. With the monitoring done under Greg Tylka they are seeing a very high % of the current resistant varieties allow nematodes to feed and reproduce on them. The crux of the problem is that there are not enough events available. Fields in China are the source for new events and apparently new sources are not as available as they need to be. There are a few new biological products on the shelf awaiting EPA approval that appear promising. There is also a plant extract that would give systemic control using in-season applications.
The second problem is with CRW. So far both traits and planting applied products have been severely challenged to control the western species. For this we have seen adult control work well. Few companies have explored the avenue of combining attractants and hard or soft insecticides. This needs to change, but such develops may not be welcomed by a number of companies. RNA technology may be approaching, but in most applications did not last long in the field due to instability or the fluid genome concept.
The last insect that will be discussed is the gall midge. This tunneling larvae or the adult fly is now in nearly every county west of I-35. The flies are very small and escape detection. In trials hard insecticides don’t last long enough due to a period of feeding or emergence window of the egg laying adult.
With these last two the best candidates to explore may be biological in nature. Both act systemically and offer long residuals. Those two would be the Beauveria bassiana, a naturally occurring white fuzzy fungus and a shrimp shell extract called chitosan which triggers the plants and soil microbes to produce an enzyme which dissolves the hard chitin-based insect shells and their mouth parts.
Bob Streit is an independent crop consultant and columnist for Farm News. He can be reached at (515) 709-0143 or www.CentralIowaAg.com.