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 rain delays it continues. The first planters were rolling the first week in April and continuing to put in acres in much of central Iowa. There are still many acres of disc chiseled ground that have not be worked or planted, so with another rain delay the season may continue into June. We made a run into northern Iowa on Saturday and saw planters from six rows to 16 rows still operating. Their temps stay cooler and with more livestock in their operations taking care of their tasks can reduce their operating hours. Even in central Iowa there are still soybeans planted. With late season planting of bean and operators continuing to be surprised at how well late planted beans can yield, getting them in the ground by late May beans is acceptable. I will cover that topic later in this column.
So, the good old USDA compiled their early projections and came up with a swag (simple wild a _ _ guess) and knocked grain prices significantly. The national corn acres are projected to be around 93 Million acres, which would be one of the highest totals in recent years, if farmer late winter projections are realized. Soybean acres would drop vs 2022. But the markets and year end production numbers, besides having to endure droughty/flooding or too hot/too cold conditions, could hinge on how many acres of corn end up being planted in N and S Dakota. The latest tally of May 14th told that ND planting pace for corn was only 5% done compared to the normal 26%. Bean planting was at 2% vs 26%. N Dakota total expected acres for corn was at 7 Mil corn and 5.3 Mil SB. S Dakota planting progress was at 49% for C and 29% for SB. With the May 25th prevent planting date of May 25, very heavy snow accumulations, late warm up, and major rains moving thru the state in recent weeks, there may be a significant loss in corn acres in N Dakota in 2023 that is not factored in yet and may not be for several months.
I have to call a few operators I know in the two Dakotas to see how planting is progressing or if they can only sit on the sidelines. With the higher prevent plant vs cash price one can surmise that many operators may opt for taking prevent plant. They will each have to calculate what makes financial sense for them and follow thru on it. If a high enough percent of those corn acres disappear, it will have an noticeable effect on market prices for everyone.
Field Observations
As of Sunday, the corn in the state ranges from early V4 down to early V1. As a total the corn crop is several leaf stages behind where it normally is for late May. With continued northwest winds and very few days above the mid-60s it has been tough to accumulate many heat units. I was ten miles into Missouri last week and the tallest early planted corn was only in the mid-V4 stage as the cold temps have been regional wide phenomena. The oak and pecan tree leaves have really only shown much size increase in the last ten days. But once we begin to get the above normal temps and have them climb into the 80s, as is projected by Simon Atkins and Eric Snodgrass, the corn plants have shown the ability to add three to four feet in growth in ten to fourteen days.
Similarly, the grass and weeds are showing rapid growth as well. Over the next two weeks many of the post emergent applications will be made if we receive enough days to permit field traffic and can receive calmer weather so as to avoid drift problems and the many days when it was too windy, as was the case in much of the 2022 season.
There are more postemerge mixes where two, three or even four classes of chemistry are combined that offer a wider control spectrum and hopefully longer residual. It is surprising how much a narrow spectrum product can aid in combination with tank mix partners weak in controlling one weed family.
Corn stands are generally good, but the effects of being planted in colder soils did have an effect on emergence. I did look at fields where up to 20+ % emerged days later than the first emergers. Other fields planted just before a cold rain were those most likely to be the ones where one had to ask if the delayed emergers would be acting as a weed or runt. In cases those became replant candidates.
One topic that arose in a crop consultant meeting was one discussed quite a bit in the late 1980s, which is the two physiological pathways plants use to detoxify applied herbicides. It was also discussed at length at national weed conferences. Those two were the P-450 system, which degraded the SU and ALS herbicides. What was known was that it was an energy intensive system which operated at higher efficiency with warmer temperatures and more sunlight. Knowing about it could explain why in cooler and cloudier springs we could see certain compounds stunt plants or cause yellows to form. Then once conditions warmed up and sunlight levels increased, the plants recovered with no effects on yield. But if cool and cloudy conditions persisted yield effects could show up at harvest. The second degrading system was referred to as the GST system, which was the one which the Class 14 herbicides such as Metolachlor or Acetochlor belonged to. Over the last two decades we have seen more use of safteners included in different products which originally in their non-saftened form could cause crop damage. Bayer devoted effort into the development of these safteners providing them to other companies to include in their own products.
Soybean Plans Gone Astray
One major topic in farm magazines and professed by different crop gurus, was telling of the benefits of early planting of soybeans, often in early or mid-May. It was also before they began planting corn. This function was because early planted beans can form more podded nodes then beans planted late. While this sounds like a good idea, we see in years with late freezes it can also lead to having to replant those beans. After having studied and been in Rawson’s and Culler’s high yield fields, I and others concluded that a better way to improve bean yields was to apply products to the seed or small plants which enable them to add additional branches. Realize that soybeans are very hormonally driven. Swinging the hormone balance from the Auxin to Cytokine side, the plants will stay shorter, add more branches and more roots. Then rather than relying solely of main stem nodes for flowering and pod formations to form, you can add flowers and pods on each of those branches. This is good news for this season, as a SB grower does not have to be accepting of lower yields because he had to plant later. There are several products that have demonstrated the ability to force branching. Those I have seen work well have been Impulse from Spraytec, SoyFx from AgroVive, and a hormonal bacteria called BranchOut. Those products can be mixed and added in tandem to get surprising results. In 2022 we saw that applying two products produced a multiplicative effect with branch numbers as high as 14 or 23. We also noticed that applying an energized sugar/mineral/hormonal source multiplied the branching effect. The exemplified rule with the application of biologicals is to apply a food source at the same time.
Because everyone has limited budgets, what product or products leave funds to pay for the foliar fertilizers that need to be applied at R1, R3 and even as late as R5.5. Regular timed foliar applications can produce very short internodes to improve late season standability. And if the pods are still filling, recognize that added nutrition can contribute to bean size. The debate continues as to which minerals need to be included in these late R applications. Is it K, is it S, is it Cu and Ca? It is likely all four than can contribute as well as Co and Ni. It is a fun and potentially profitable chess game. If you wish to see the article researching foliar nutrition research as done back in the 1965 era check out our website. I found it in a Brazilian text book written by Euripides Malavolta and given to me during a visit to the NE Brazilian states of Alagoas and Pernambuco. We expect to be recommending lots of Foliar Blend and Micro-Fuel, Spraytec K and Plus this season for the foliar applications after we have the branch inducing product applied.
Insect Issues
So far insects have not been a major issue in our major crops. Most of our winds have been from the north, which don’t bring in cutworms. The winter was too harsh for bean leaf beetles to survive. I am hearing about wire worms causing stand loss in a few fields. Them and slugs which can show up in bean stands planted into standing cover crops cannot be address with most labeled products. For them I would try biological or essential oil-based products such as Chitosan, Agri-Q, Hot Shot or Beauveria bassiana. These would also be those recommended for rescuing bean plants which end up showing damage from Gall Midge larvae.
Bob Streit is an independent crop consultant and columnist for Farm News. He can be reached at (515) 709-0143 or www.CentralIowaAg.com.