Feb. 23, 2022 Edition
“When it rains, things
get wet. And when things get wet, you can't do what you want to do."
- John Madden; NFL Hall of Fame member
With a quote like this, you would have thought Mr. Madden
spent some time in the Northern Plains of the US on a farm during the spring
and autumn. However, my bet was he was referencing
the fact that sometimes you have to keep things simple in order to accomplish your
objective. In his own way, Madden was a
genius at keeping his football analysis simple but effective, and he achieved legendary
status while doing so. In this world of
over analysis, and performance metrics, keeping things simple for a farm
business becomes a task all in its own. Every
individual farm operation has their own unique way of monitoring their plans, and
any steps to simplify the process usually lead to better efficiency and
progress.
If you have any ideas for newsletter topics, feel free to
reach-out for discussion. As you can
tell from my history of articles, most ideas are welcome. This month list includes crop
inputs, planter performance, and Enlist-3 information.
Bayer® Announces Agreement with MS Tech for Enlist-3™
In surprising news, Bayer and MS Technologies (a subsidiary
of Stine Seed) announce their agreement to bring Enlist-3 genetics to more
customers. The verbiage used in the
announcement designates a “distribution agreement” received by Bayer from MS Tech
and will bring Bayer customers the option of Enlist-3 genetics starting for the
2023 growing season. With this verbiage of
“distribution agreement”, it’s my assumption that Bayer will gain the
opportunity to market and sell Enlist-3 soybean varieties originating only from the
MS Tech breeding pipeline. Whether these
varieties are proprietary to Bayer or not is yet to be announced. To my knowledge, this will be the first time
Monsanto/Bayer will be sourcing genetics with traits (on a large scale) from an
outside breeding program.
This announcement is great news for farm
managers as it will provide more safety, less liability, more weed control solutions,
and reduce regulatory hurdles from an applicator standpoint, plus remove any
concerns about the future viability of dicamba from the judicial courts and the
EPA. Overall, a win-win for everyone
involved.
Corteva’s R&D pipeline continues to have the vision of Enlist-3
as the foundation platform of their soybean breeding program today and into the
future. Short-term (4-7 years), the goal
will be to stack other herbicide traits on top of Enlist-3 for additional weed control
measures (i.e., PPO inhibitors, HPPD inhibitors, etc.).
It is my understanding that Bayer is also working on their
own unique 2,4-D tolerance trait for soybeans with pending regulatory approval
research and processes yet to complete.
Therefore, future agreements between Bayer and MS Tech for the rights to
Enlist-3 for breeding purposes are probably very low in probability, unless
some unexpected regulatory hurdles are encountered from Bayer.
https://www.bayer.com/en/us/bayer-to-offer-soybeans-containing-the-enlist-e3tm-trait-in-near-future
Corteva® Announces Training Opportunities for Enlist Soybeans
One great advantage to the Enlist-3® soybean system is the fact
that the industry supplied herbicide training regarding the weed control
technology is one hundred precent optional! However, some operations do appreciate the
offered training to keep themselves and their employees engaged. If your operation does have interest in
learning more about the application parameters around Enlist-3®
soybeans, we have the following on-line training dates available in March. There have been some label changes to the Enlist
One and Enlist Duo herbicides with the re-registration being granted by the EPA
last month.
Applicator training with label change updates:
• March 14, 2022, at 12 p.m. CT
— Register now
• March 29, 2022, at 9 a.m. CT
— Register now
If you are interested in additional insight for comparing
and contrasting the Enlist-3® system vs the dicamba system, we have
a learning opportunity on that topic as well (sorry for the short notice).
Enlist® Weed Control System vs.
In-Crop Dicamba System: Thursday Feb. 24, 2022, at 10 a.m. CT – Register now
Input Supply
Concerns Mount
Fertilizer prices and herbicide availability continue to be
the center of most producer and retailer concerns for the upcoming spring. I’ll add
some additional comments below.
Bayer® Addressing Glyphosate Shortages
By now, everyone has seen the Feb. 14th statement from
Bayer®
on the shortfall of branded glyphosate, and the news is having difficulty being
digested by their retail customers across the world (according to AgNews – link
below). It’s been stated by some folks
that a pesticide manufacturer will see large profit opportunity by building a manufacturing
plant for glyphosate here in the United States. However, until more conclusive evidence comes
out on the carcinogenic effects (positive or negative), manufacturing capacity
of glyphosate will probably not expand.
https://news.agropages.com/News/NewsDetail---41935.htm
Corteva Agri-sciences
Investing in Additional Chemical Manufacturing
One bit of positive news regarding crop pesticide inputs,
that hasn’t garnered much attention, has come from Corteva Agri-sciences (January
of ’21). They announced the building of
a new chemical manufacturing plant in Midland, Michigan to supplement its already
strong manufacturing footprint in the area.
It’s a $235 million project that should have a jump-start in securing
labor and materials for a fairly timely completion.
Baytown, TX
Refinery Shutdown
Exxon Mobile supposedly has the fourth largest crude oil
refinery in the United States located outside of Houston, Texas with over 560k
barrel-per-day refining capacity.
Unfortunately, this facility endured an explosion in late December of
2021 and has been operating at reduced production levels since. The plant is now slated to be shut down for a
planned overhaul.
This particular Exxon facility is known for producing
gasoline from its refinery. It is
unclear how long the repairs will take or the impact on gasoline supplies for
the short and long-term. However, it’s a
signal that supply of another critical commodity will be tightening and/or
requiring imports to offset the losses.
In this heightened political atmosphere, the willingness to export key
commodities is not high by astute world leaders.
Spring
Planter Performance and Winter Maintenance
When it comes to
plant spacing in corn, most good quality university and industry research will
show about a 2.0 to 3.5 bu/ac advantage for each one-inch (1”) improvement in
the standard deviation (SD). A great example
of relevant research comes from R.L. Nielsen’s work out of Purdue University
(published in 2004; weblink here).
In Nielsen’s research,
the target was a corn seeding rate of 34,848 kernels/ac on 30” rows. If you calculate the within row spacing
target to achieve the specific population, it will equate to exactly 6” of
spacing between each kernel within a row.
Under the precisely uniform 6” spacing scenario, and assuming every
kernel germinated to establish a healthy seedling, the standard deviation for
the post-emerge analysis of the plant stand would equate to zero (0). Naturally, a planter will provide some variability
of kernel spacing even under the best conditions plus, every kernel will not germinate. Therefore, having a goal of a SD of two-inches
(2”) is probably as good as we can obtain under average to above average
conditions.
An SD of 2” would
indicate a plant stand on average has a variance of 2” either above or below the
average. In the above scenario of 34,848
kernels/ac seeding rate on 30” rows, half the plant spacings would be greater
than 6” and they would average 8” in length apart, while the other half would be
below 6” in spacing and average 4” apart.
This would equal a standard deviation of 2 inches. Technically, the SD is calculated as the
square root of the variance. If you’d
like more detail, please see this link.
Figure (below): Grain
yield versus actual plant spacing variability (calculated by standard deviation). Each 1” increase in plant spacing variability,
results in 2.2 bu/ac yield loss with a very high R-Squared value (96.6%) – very
low variance in the data (strong confidence). (R.L. Nielsen, 2004)
There can be many variables in the research around corn plant spacing due to hybrid ear flex potential, growing season stresses (drought, insects, heat, etc.) and the methods used to obtain desired plant stand variability. I like Nielsen’s work here due to the fact that he implemented special planter plates that were engineered to drop kernels with the desired deviation. Contrastingly, other researchers primarily over-planted and then hand thinned the stand accordingly after emergence (sometimes as late as V-5 to V-6 growth stage) to obtain the desired plant stand variability. As you can imagine, this later described procedure can be very influencing to end of year yields.
Plant spacing is
just one aspect of planter maintenance, so I’ll provide a couple links to additional
resources.
Top Ten Tips: https://www.pioneer.com/us/agronomy/pre_season_planter_tips.html Comprehensive
Checklist: https://www.pioneer.com/us/agronomy/planter-overview-checklist.html
https://www.pioneer.com/us/agronomy/corn_planting_outcome_effects.html
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