Monitoring fields is important

Even though it is late in the season and harvest is nearing, you should still closely monitor those fields.

Agronomists are observing soybean feeding by bean leaf beetles, clover worm and other insects causing defoliation.

“That’s one thing we are managing and watching thresholds,” said Cody Pettit with Pioneer. “There are a few cases where we’ve been out there spraying already.”

Pettit suggests examining a pod to see how far along the seed is. If there is any pod feeding at all, you may want to consider spraying if you think you’ll have a good soybean crop.

The corn looks good, although Pettit has received reports of tar spot out in the fields. We are past the stage where it will cause any economic damage.

“Overall, disease pressure has been pretty low in the corn and things are looking pretty good.”

We were slightly behind on growing degree units just before the recent hot weather spell, which allowed us to catch up. According to Pettit, we are tracking right on the 11 year average trend. Outside of last year, Pettit feels we should have a slower dry down than what we’ve seen in the past four years.

If your field did experience a July or August wind event, manage for that by closely monitoring stalk quality and harvesting those damaged fields first.

Seed Update:

Pioneer has plenty of diversity in its seed lineup with Qrome corn. This is a molecular stack. The company is able to access 90 percent of its genetic gene pool insead of the 45 percent they were able to earlier.

“We are pretty excited and seeing a big yield bump out of it – getting back better roots and lower ear placement,” explained Nick Franzen, Pioneer territory manager.

The company does offer and has a good supply of Enlist soybeans which are a hot topic currently. Even though Liberty and Xtend beans are still available, the company made a big push toward Enlist since that is what the growers seem to want.

Both Pettit and Franzen spoke at last week’s plot day hosted by Atkins Seed Service.