Boots In The Field Report

High Ear Counts = High YieldsIn this week's #BIFR, Ken reminds growers that high ear counts are the key to high yields. He also covers planting updates, replant decisions, the ugly corn phase, and insect activity. Cutworm feeding has started, so pest teams be on the lookout! 

Ken Ferrie covers planting progress and emergence in this week’s Boots In The Field Report. Much-needed rain came for most of the Midwest and will help reduce a lot of service calls on all the seed that was sitting in dry soil. Bean stands are looking good and indicating a lot will make early flowering. While corn stands look good from the road, Ken advises stretching a tape to see what your stand count and ear count are. While industry standard says growers should shoot for a 13% or less reduction from planted to ear count, Ken challenges growers to strive to keep it under 6% to take their yields to the next level. He also recommends recording and cataloging these early stand and ear counts so they can be reviewed during yield map meetings. Ken also covers how seed chilling, seed quality, and seed orientation play into the emergence issues and advises if growers pushed away a lot of dry soil to plant into moisture and received a good shot of rain this week, to keep an eye out for crusting.

It is finally here! In this week’s Boots In The Field Report Ken Ferrie gives the green light locally for planting corn and encourages growers to get this planting season in the books. But he does caution growers to make sure they are planting into moisture. He gives the following advice if still needing to do tillage before plating:Horizontal tillage: make sure the planter is on the tail of the tillage pass to make sure moisture doesn’t get away. Vertical Tillage: If have to run, run shallow with little to no gang angle. If running on bean stubble to dry and warm up the soil, not needed with these conditions could go no-till. If running to incorporate surface nitrogen, better off buying a urease inhibitor and no-tilling to save moisture with current forecast. High Speed Disks: this is putting in a shallow horizontal tillage layer creating a lot of issues. Gives up moisture needed for germination within hours, subject to blowing if it doesn’t rain and subject to crusting if it does rain.Planting into moisture

In this Boots In The Field Report Ken Ferrie covers the calls coming in on the crops planted April 3-10th that took the hardest hit from the freeze. The first step to evaluating replant decisions is to have accurate counts for what plants survived. For beans checking that the stem below the cotyledon is firm. If soft, it gets counted in the dead column. If firm, it gets counted in the maybe column and growers will have to watch for new growth to confirm (70-90 GDUs – so could be next Friday before you know). On corn Ken recommends checking plants that had spikes close to the surface, watching to see if those split and try to leaf out underground. Moisture, tillage practices, and field conditions can play a big role in how deep the freeze got. As the calendar days start to slip away, growers need to know how many days it will take their operation to get their corn crop in the ground. That will determine if they have the luxury to wait for conditions to be right to give them the best chance of achieving their e

In this week’s Boots in The Field Report Ken covers planting progress of last week and concerns as we look at the weather ahead. Beans that were planned to be planted early and have been treated for SGS, can be planted understanding that they will be in the ground for awhile before they come up and require growers to keep an eye on soil crusting to make sure it doesn’t become an issue. He also explains the difference in conditions that cause concern for losing spike down plants versus seed chilling concerns. Both seed chilling, and spike down loss have the possibility of at 7-10 percent stand reduction, so if fighting both could already be at a 14-20 percent reduction if everything else is perfect. Ken also speaks to some of the lower seed germination results rolling in and if growers have concerns with soybean germination score, they might want to bump population 10%.

In this week’s Boots In The Field Report Ken gives the green light locally to plant fully treated beans for early planting with the understanding that there is always a risk that you may have to replant if we get a heavy frost. If forecast locally is correct then also giving a yellow light to plant corn Wednesday through noon Saturday to get the first day willies out. Understanding that the corn will most likely be in the ground until May 1st if the forecasted weather between now and then holds true. Ken reminds growers that they will have trouble with spike down plants being late emergers and that this is NOT the time to use those seed samples that had poor seed test results coming back. He also reminders growers that if you can ribbon the soil 1 inch below your tillage pass than you are going to create a compaction layer by running in too wet conditions. Use your own field conditions (on a field-by-field basis) and the depth and type of tillage tool you are using to guide when it is fit to run in each of yo

This week on the Boots In The Field Report podcast Ken Ferrie advises that now is the time for the pest boss to lay down the first line of defense. He recommends cutworm and armyworm traps going out wherever you have green cover, setting up wireworm and grub bait stations, and putting out gopher and vole bait traps. Most problems are very manageable if caught early enough. When the population grows too big, then you start to run out of options to manage and avoid a reduction in yields. Scouting for the 2023 crop starts now.

The question to ask: “Is the soil dry enough?” In this week’s Boots In The Field Report Ken Ferrie covers why this questions is so important, with 80% of the service calls for compaction that he goes on can all be traced back to this first pass in the spring. If growers are doing vertical tillage, asking is the soil dry enough to handle the weight of the equipment without creating compaction? If doing tillage, what is the moisture like below the tillage layer, is it too moist and will create compaction? This also applies to when to run the burn down pass to make sure you won’t have wheel tracks to deal with all season long. Ken also cautions growers about using spring anhydrous in the strip, wanting either rain, using RTK to stay off strips when planting or at least 2 weeks between that and planting to help tame down the anhydrous core pH. 

In this Boots in The Field Report, Ken Ferrie stresses that harvest starts now. A little planning now can alleviate a lot of pressure and stress come harvest. He suggests picking for yield first and then narrowing that down based on ear flex and leaf structure to help manage known conditions in the field. Ken advises breaking down maturity groups into: early, mid and full season varieties, to stagger pollination and harvest windows. He also suggests staggering ear flex within the maturities to help mitigate weather risks. Putting pencil to paper to figure out what your operation needs for a harvest window will help you determine when you need to pay drying fees and when you can wait for more ideal conditions.

In this week’s Boots In The Field Report Ken Ferrie walks through why 2022 was such a nitrogen friendly year for central IL. While reminding growers it didn’t take less N to grow a bushel last year, it did take less applied N for most due to the decrease in losses and the increase in mineralization. He also encourages growers to not only make their spring plan, but to make sure it is written down and shared with all the players to make sure everyone is operating from the same play book when game time comes around.

In this week’s Boots In The Field Report Ken Ferrie tackles the question: “If I have organic matters of 3.5% or higher do I need to apply sulfur?” Despite higher organic matter soils having the ability to provide sulfur later in the season, due to a reduction of sulfur naturally occurring in most environments, they often struggle in having enough available for early season. Ken covers the basis on a 4R approach to sulfur and reminds growers to switch to thinking of sulfur more as a macronutrient instead of a micronutrient.

In this week’s Boots In The Field Report Ken Ferrie covers some of the questions that came in during the Virtual College. In particular the topic of Tar Spot and what the difference is in pressure and management of “home grown” Tar Spot and “blown in.” The conditions must be right for Tar Spot but when it is, it can cause a huge yield hit. Ken talks through what we have learned so far and how we will continue to learn about this disease in the future.

In this week’s Boots In The Field Report Ken Ferrie covers several questions about what kind of efficiencies are gained with banding fertilizer and what he has been seeing as they kick off the yield map review season.

In this week’s Boots in The Field Report podcast Ken Ferrie takes some time to answer questions that have been coming in: “Switching to corn on corn or beans on beans due to market and yields, what should be considered?” and “If growers find urea priced right can they use it as their N source?” He covers what concerns or questions growers need to think about to help make the right choice for their operation.

Ken takes a little more time this week to catch up with the Matt Duesterhaus in Quincy, Il to see how their harvest finished up and then speaks with Isaac Ferrie on what they saw on the plot side this year during this week’s Boots In The Field Report. Matt commented on higher-than-average corn yields, surprising a lot of growers for how dry they got in August. He also covers some wind events, wildlife damage and fungicide results that he saw in his area. Isaac touches on the plot program results and what the research department is working on to prepare for the winter meetings. Ken reminds growers of the upcoming educational opportunities of Beyond the Basics, Hand Harvest, and Virtual Winter College.

In this week’s Boots in The Field Report Ken Ferrie recaps the last of the plots coming out, highlighting a fungicide plot out of this year’s tar spot alley, NE Iowa. He also goes over some of the yield data coming out of the ear flex plots and why some areas that experienced a flash drought in the rapid growth stage may be disappointed in the yields of their L1 hybrids. Ken reminds growers to mitigate risk with their hybrid selection and know the weaknesses of the chosen hybrids so they can farm around them.

In this week’s Boots in The Field Report Ken covers harvest progress throughout the state and reports most areas pleased with corn yields and ended up with average bean yields. Several reports coming in have shown a reduced yield coming out of the April planted corn this year and Ken reminds growers that we plant by soil conditions and not the calendar.

In this week’s Boots In The Field Report Ken recaps harvest progress and reminds growers to be patient and wait for the correct conditions before applying anhydrous. Reports from Iowa are showing yields getting dinged by the September frost causing test weights to be off and some field edge scalding in the dry area. Ken also recaps some initial reports of yield data off plots that got harvested this week from deer repellent products to planting date, maturity groups, and row spacing plots. He also advises growers to take advantage of the dry fall and lack of wheel tracks to try no-tilling next spring to help get into fields quicker for early planted beans.

In this week’s Boots In The Field Report Ken talks bigger than expected swings in bean yields and attributes that to the maturity of the bean planted and the weather it received. He is getting a lot more reports of white mold showing up and recommends combine operators make a note for pest team for yield map review if they are seeing that show up in the grain tank. Ken also recaps yield results from the Corn College Campus teaching plots and discusses why L1 and L2 hybrids have seemed to stumble more with this year’s weather pattern.

Ken talks about the gift and the curse of the dry fall: easier harvesting without getting equipment stuck/wheel tracks, don’t have to go as deep with fall tillage to get full width shatter, and good conditions to build fall strips, but without moisture it may make fall anhydrous applications impossible to seal. He also reminds growers that they will need to have notes of weed escapes because it will take 3 years of staying on top of it to get them back under control. Ken advises harvest scouts to keep track of ear counts and locations so at yield mapping time, they can calculate bushels per ear and when finding ear mold issues moving them up the harvest list and not storing that grain at home.