MC Extension: Monitor your fields
As corn and soybean crops mature and harvest begins, this is a good time to take final field notes and reflect on this year’s growing season. What weeds were a problem? What insects and diseases impacted crops? Was fertility adequate to allow for optimum growth? As fields are harvested yield monitors will potentially identify areas that need further investigation. This has been a variable year for weather. Weather interruptions in planting and flooding some fields, provided good conditions for disease development. Droughty areas had crops mature with limited moisture. It can easily be cause of variable yields in fields. This article will focus on weeds and diseases.
What about weeds. Did some of your fields suffer from weed escapes? In order to develop a good herbicide programs for 2022, it starts with documenting weeds of concern in each field. Was your 2021 program effect? If not, what weeds where not effectively controlled and why. Was it due to a late flush of weeds like burcucumber, off label size of weed at spraying, or weather factors, etc. Farmers need to monitor weed herbicide resistance in fields as this can change from year to year. Weeds are developing resistance to herbicides being utilized to control glyphosate resistant weeds. If you have some questionable weed populations, let your extension office know. Seeds collected may be tested to document new herbicide resistance this winter.
If you have a field that has weed escapes present, harvest weedy field last and clean out the combine after harvesting. You don’t want to spread difficult to control weeds to new fields. Monitoring weeds through out the growing season is important for protecting current yield and selecting herbicides for next year.
How did your corn hybrids hold up to disease pressure? Tar Spot is a new fungal disease that impacts corn. Researchers know that some corn hybrids are more resistant or tolerant to this disease than other hybrids. With Tar Spot pressure this year, how did your corn hybrids hold up this year? Be sure to ask your seedsman what hybrids showed some good resistance to Tar Spot. Fungicides are a tool to manage this disease, but having hybrids with strong resistance remains the best option. Darcy Telenko, Purdue Extension Row Crop Disease Specialist, has plots at Pinney Purdue Ag Center to compare hybrid resistance to Tar Spot. She will share this data along with timing of fungicide application on disease control data this winter.
Soybean cultivars have varied resistance to diseases as well. You monitor your soybean cultivars and work with your seedsman to determine which cultivars work best on your farm. Soybean cyst nematodes (SCN) remains a silent yield reducing pest. Have you sampled your fields for SCN lately? Darcy has funding to test one soil sample for SCN per grower. Allowing farmers to test a suspect field for SCN at no cost. Additional soil samples sent in will cost $25 a sample. For additional information on SCN testing visit: https://ag.purdue.edu/ btny/ppdl/pages/submit-asample.aspx .
As we harvest the 2021 crop, we need to document variation within yields and factors responsible for variation. Soil types and weather will typically cause variability within a field. Comparing this kind of information to notes taken throughout the season will help growers find reoccurring problems, new emerging issues, and locate areas of improvement for next season. But a key for success in row crop production, is knowing how to adjust fertility, pest management, drainage, soil health, and cropping system to improve crop performance in the future. This will only happen by documenting how crops perform each year, identifying yield limiting factors, and proactively working to improve the crop systems.