Burndown Barriers of 2022
Spring is in the air! The grass is greening up, the songbirds are back serenading us, each day is getting longer, the daily temperature is sort of warming up, and snow is changing to rain (for the most part). But that is the problem, isn’t it? Temps are staying lower than average, and the precipitation does not seem to want to stay away for longer than a 48-hour stretch, at best.
Plant It Like You Own It
Most every major purchase you make comes with an owner’s manual that tells you the right ways to have a successful run with your item. Your car comes with an owner’s manual, your lawn mower, even your pet rock did as I recall.
Get to Know Greg Goodwin, PCM Director
Get to Know Greg Goodwin the new PCM Director.
Do not forget to assess fields for wireworm and white grubs before planting
Although some parts of Illinois have started to get beans in the ground, most of us are still waiting for soils to dry out and warm up. Something that should be on our radars in the week or two before planting are soilborne insect pests that may affect our soybeans.
Early planting of soybeans and population
Planting soybeans early? Consider reducing the population to let the plant exploit this opportunity.
Keep an eye out for red crown rot in Illinois soybeans in 2022
In 2018 I received some images on my cell phone. These images were of red crown rot, a soybean disease I had encountered while I was the field crop pathologist at the University of Delaware. The images clearly showed distinctive brick red, pinhead sized “balls” aggregated on the lower stems of the plant.
Dave’s Planter Top Ten for 2022
I am a family farmer in Bureau and Marshall County. Late night host David Letterman had a Top 10 countdown as a longtime popular segment on his show. My last name is Murphy, not Letterman, but here is my Top 10 Planter list for 2022.
Brazil Drought Impacts Soybean Production
Early season drought issues across Southern Brazil (Mato Grosso Do Sul, Parana, and Rio Grande do Sul) robbed Brazil of a record setting soybean crop for the 2021-22 growing season. Stagnant high-pressure plus a lack of cold fronts moving north out of Argentina led to about 40% of Southern Brazil’s soybean growing area receiving less than 60% of normal rainfall through late January.
Managing for Higher Yield – What Pays and What Doesn’t
Farmers make hundreds of decisions every year. Some of them are big and some are small. These decisions all affect the bottom line to differing degrees. Some of them have negligible fiscal repercussions, while some can mean the difference between profit and loss. In my recent Better Beans seminar, I discussed five decisions that farmers make when growing soybeans and their impact on profitability.
NASS – The Census is Coming
Hello again everyone, and welcome to spring (almost). The temps are rising, and we’ve all changed our clocks so planting time will be here very soon. This is the fourth in a series of blog posts from NASS.
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