The 1980s brought a lot of innovation to farming, beginning with improved options to control weeds. We had been counting on cultivation in-crop to work out the weeds, but this is when we began to have more chemical control methods. Products like Dual, Prowl, Canopy, Preview and others made it easier to control both grass and small-seeded broadleaf weeds. However, large-seeded broadleaf weeds like giant and common ragweed, as well as cocklebur, were still a huge problem. Also, shattercane and johnsongrass were robbing yield and making harvest difficult.  

In the early ‘80s, a slow transformation began in weed control strategy: from preplant and pre-emerge herbicide applications to incorporating post-applied products. Blazer, 2,4-B, Dyanap, Fusilade and a few others made it so we could clean up fields in-crop. This not only improved yields but made harvest much easier. Around mid-decade, the ALS herbicide products began to hit the fields. Pursuit, Scepter and their premix partners really began to hammer problem weeds like giant ragweed, cocklebur and shattercane.  

With better weed control chemicals, we had the need for less cultivation in-crop. This led to the search for the optimum row spacings in soybeans. Many began planting beans in 30-inch rows. Here in Southern Illinois, we started to drill a lot of soybeans in 6-inch rows with wheat drills to use as existing equipment. This didn’t work the best, so we experimented with 7.5-inch, 10-inch, 15-inch, and up to 20-inch rows. There were about as many options as there were farmers!  

This is also about the time no-till soybeans started to really take off – not just double crop but early planted soybeans as well. Planting

Farmer scouting a soybean field. (Credit – Illinois Soybean Association)

equipment improved rapidly to adapt to this new craze called conservation tillage. Many farmers started using different equipment for planting soybeans and corn. This was an extra expense, and some forward-looking equipment manufacturers came up with planters that could do both. Thus, the Black Machine and the Kinze Twin Line planters hit the market. Some variations of those are the standard for soybean planting here in Southern Illinois today. 

In the ‘80s, harvesting equipment really started to get bigger and faster. Tandem trucks instead of wagons became more popular to haul the crop off the field. Combines improved a great deal in size, production capability and comfort. Air conditioning became standard equipment, along with actual sound systems and not just a radio. The long hours in harvest season were a little more bearable than just a couple decades earlier.  

Crop nutrition was starting to get some attention in soybeans, instead of them just scavenging for what the previous corn crop didn’t use. Farmers began to add some potash ahead of soybeans when they kept seeing a pretty good return from that application. Genetics were beginning to improve as well. Pioneer and Asgrow made huge investments into soybean genetics. Just a few years earlier, almost all our seeds were public soybean varieties. This began to set the stage for what was coming in the ‘90s. While public varieties were still the market’s biggest player in the ‘80s, that would end abruptly by the time the new century began.  

I would be remiss if I failed to mention the economic times of the 1980s. This decade saw the biggest agricultural financial crisis since the Dust Bowl. Farm failures were at a devastatingly high pace. Farmland values collapsed, and inflation and interest rates soared. An operating line of credit in the early 1980s could be at as high as 21% interest. Land mortgages were above 16%. Farm bank failures were devastating as well, and not just farmers suffered. Ag retailers, equipment dealers and fuel suppliers lost their livelihood in the worst agricultural financial disaster in over 50 years. This was a dark time in our industry.   

Payment-In-Kind (PIK), “Pic and Roll,” the “South Dakota Shuffle,” warehouse certificates and other government programs struggled to support the aftermath of using food as a weapon against the Soviet Union and others. Our reputation as the “bread basket of the world” was tarnished and customers looked elsewhere for their agricultural commodity needs. Overproduction, low prices, two major droughts and a nuclear power plant meltdown in Ukraine led to volatile market swings – daily at times. Those that survived it were determined never to be in that position again.  

But brighter days were ahead! Next month we’ll talk about the ‘90s and the advent of genetic modification. Things were about to explode on the farm, and we had no idea it was coming! Innovation at a monumental scale is in the next blog.