June 13, 2013

                With the talk of preventive planting sweeping the country side there are several questions being asked about what to do with the preventive plant acre. Many of the questions will have to be answered by either your insurance man/women or county FSA office but there are plenty of cover crop questions the agronomy team at FFC would be happy to discuss. The three crops we are recommending as a fallow ground cover crop would be oats, rye and tillage radish. These three crops all are going to keep the soil working and nutrients available for next year’s growing season. The supply on these crops is all over the board with oats being very hard to get, rye being available but in a tight supply and tillage radish having a good supply. Feel free to stop by any location and talk to an agronomist about what cover crop would best fit your acre.

                The few days it hasn’t been raining we have been busy spraying post emerge corn, pre emerge corn, and pre emerge beans. A few things we have been noticing are that although the weather hasn’t been very favorable for vegetative corn or bean growth it seems that weeds in some fields have not slowed down. As difficult as it’s going to be to get in the fields this year to spray we are going to have to make sure we are using extra precautions for the best kill possible. This may mean slowing down, increasing gallons per acre and spiking in some extra chemical to make sure it kills the larger weeds.

                The scouts at FFC have been busy these past weeks covering many acres. They have been seeing a little bit of everything in the fields. In some areas the weed pressure is starting to develop and in other fields weed pressure is minimal. There hasn’t been much bug pressure yet but we expect that to be coming. The number one issue out there now is flooded out fields. In these flooded out or extremely wet fields we have discovered some rhizoctonia in beans and pythium in corn. Both diseases strive in the cool wet soils we have been experiencing. The only way to help combat these problems is selecting a good seed treatment. Although it is late in the season and some are leery about spending the money on a seed treatment, we are still recommending it on all bean acres. Below is an interesting picture of a farmer who was using treated beans and finished up the last of the field with some untreated beans. The beans on the left were treated and the beans on the right were untreated.

 

       Thanks for taking the time to read the blog and let’s keep our fingers crossed for some dry weather!