April 7, 2022 Edition
"Hey,
where are you going?"
"I'm
done, I've had enough. It’s been fun, but I'm exhausted."
“Don't
do it! Don’t do it, Kevin. You
know If I get that hot, I'm not coming out!"
On
this particular night of NBA history in early March of 1985, Larry Bird and
Kevin McHale discuss McHale's exit of the game against the Detroit Pistons with
time still remaining. Even though Larry had a big triple-double
performance (30 pts, 15 rebs, 10 ast), the star of the night was McHale who accumulated
56 points and 16 rebounds! Even though
McHale surpassed Bird’s prior single game Celtic scoring record of 53 points,
Bird cherished the fact that McHale was torturing one of his past nemeses – a
prior teammate during Bird’s early college days at Indiana University – Kent Benson.
Supposedly, Benson was a consistent bully towards Bird during their time in
Bloomington. During this particular
Celtics versus Pistons clash at the Boston Garden, Benson started the game, but
only finished with 15 minutes of playing time and 8 points as his frustrations
against McHale and Bird grew to the point of Benson throwing a temper tantrum
on the court, then receiving a technical foul because of the tantrum, and
finally being tossed from the gamed because of continued outbursts after the
technical foul. One can only imagine the
verbal exchanges between the Celtic players and Benson while he was forced to
removed himself from the court. https://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/198503030BOS.html
Anyway,
sure enough, about a week later (9 days to be exact) Larry got the hot shooting
hand against the Atlanta Hawks who were playing a home game in New Orleans at
Lakefront Arena. Larry finished the game
with a career best 60 points (which is still the all-time Celtic single game
scoring record) while asking the opponents who was going to try and guard him
next and then calling his ensuing shot while on the defensive end of the
court. After the game, McHale gave Bird
a congratulatory high-five and then received Bird’s favorite jab, "told
you so!". During the post-game press-conference, McHale said all the
right things by mentioning how honored he felt to hold the Celtics team single
game scoring record - even if it was only for a week - and what a privilege it
is on a nightly basis to be a teammate of Larry Bird's. https://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/198503120ATL.html
Many
of our farm employees have consistent performances on a day to day and year to
year basis to try and produce the best crop possible given the
circumstances. However, if you ask them
about their specific job or task on the farm, or give them a pat on the back
for a job well done, they always are very humble and give credit to the machinery
manufacturer, or the farm manager while at the same time feeling privileged to
be a contributing part of the farm labor team.
It’s conversations like these that assist in making us relish our role
in agriculture.
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’s list includes an update on Enlist herbicides, cover crop concerns, cold
germ testing, and planting soybeans before corn.
Cover
Crop Seed
It’s been very interesting to say the least, about the
learning were involved with regarding cover crops, soil health, and carbon
credits. Hopefully, for decades down the
road, we’ll be positioning ourselves for greater productivity from our local
fields. With regards to cover crop seed,
I’ll just quickly iterate a couple concerns.
First, it’s very common for small seed sized cover crops to
contain weed seeds. It is well
documented that many new infestations of our most troublesome weeds come from a
contaminated cover crop seed source.
Also, if you are a canola producer or considering adding canola to your
crop rotation at some point in the future, the potential to increase blackleg
infestation is high with brassica cover crops like radishes and turnips. I know sourcing cover crop seed can be a
time-consuming task already, but we need to ask important questions to minimize
our risk around potential longer-term concerns.
With pesticide resistance being a very significant part of agriculture
today, there should be extra caution taken to insure we don’t start new infestations
on our fields and farms.
Enlist-3 Minnesota County Restriction Update
Back in January of this year, the EPA granted Corteva a
re-registration of Enlist One and Enlist Duo herbicides with some slight label
modifications. One of those modifications
at the time was the restricted use of Enlist Duo (2,4-D choline plus
glyphosate) in certain counties throughout the US based on perceived harm to specific
Endangered Species. There were six
Minnesota counties on this list. However,
the EPA did provide an update at the end of March stating the US Fish Wildlife
Service has since updated their information regarding Endangered Species
habitat areas. The new information basically
has removed the basis for Enlist Duo restrictions. Therefore, for the 2022 season, both Enlist
One and Enlist Duo are federally approved in all counties of Minnesota as well
as in 128 other counties where the January restrictions were implemented.
There were two other key label changes regarding Enlist
(2,4-D choline) usage: 1) application for crop stage was changed to “through R1
growth stage” which is full flower or a flower present on one of the top two
nodes of the plant which have a fully developed leaf, and 2) the need to
address pesticide run-off mitigation – no application for 48 hours prior to a
rainfall event (including irrigation) that will result in field water run-off. See the following Enlist One label for
specifics: https://www.corteva.us/labels-and-safety-data-sheets.html
https://www.regulations.gov/document/EPA-HQ-OPP-2021-0957-0020
https://www.epa.gov/...enlist-products-134-additional-counties-2022-growing-season
Corn Cold
Germination Testing
I’ve already seen and heard a few operations either
currently conducting or planning to conduct some type of cold germination test
for the corn hybrids they have purchased for the upcoming season. When we realize that 5-9% of corn yield can
typically be determined by stand establishment, the drive is present to insure
we are starting with a quality seed source.
However, the over-riding question to me is this one: can a
laboratory procedure accurately simulate cold field conditions and ultimately a
corn seed’s genetic ability to overcome a stressful cold environment? Well, the Pioneer Agronomy Sciences team set
out to answer such a question by evaluating seven (7) different hybrids with
the a Pioneer Stress Test (PST) versus the Cold Germ AOSA test, and then a
final comparison of actually planting the hybrids in a field under extreme cold
stress (results are shown in the figure).
As you can see, six of the seven hybrids tested above 90% on the cold
germ AOSA test (light blue), while only one of the seven hybrids tested above
90% on the PST (dark blue). The ultimate
comparison of what actually happened in the field under cold stress conditions
is the interesting and key analysis (olive green). Only “Hybrid G” was able to overcome the
field conditions at a near 90% rate.
Also to note, is the fact that the PST lab procedure more closely predicted field conditions for all seven hybrids, compared to the Cold Germ AOSA test. However, the cold germ AOSA lab procedure did closely simulate germination in two or three of the seven hybrids – although it always estimated on the high side. The results from “Hybrid A” indicate that there can be some very large differences between the AOSA test and what can happen in the field under cold stress conditions.
The exact procedure of
the PST is proprietary to Corteva Agri-Sciences and continues to be tweaked as
more years of data under various conditions are collected. The final PST results of a particular hybrid
are utilized to determine published genetic “stress emergence” scores for Pioneer
branded corn hybrids.
https://corteva.showpad.com/share/zf7jzez07NEnhwl35caiR
So, if an independent general laboratory has vast
inconsistencies in accurately replicating field conditions when it comes to cold
stress germination in corn, what can a farm manager do to try and ensure a good
opportunity for an adequate corn plant stand establishment? Well, here is my best recommendation –
converse with your local seed dealer provider and ask which of their products
of those purchased have a history of emerging best under cold stressful
conditions. Then, place your planting
plan together for at least the first several fields of corn and the hybrid that
will best perform for the situation – stress emergence, standability, and yield. Second, see my next article on evaluating the
opportunity to plant soybeans before corn.
Sowing Soybeans
Early
One tactic to
minimize frost injury to soybeans is to evaluate the history of the average
last spring frost and then determine how many days it takes for 100 GDD’s to
accumulate in early May. According to
NDAWN (https://ndawn.ndsu.nodak.edu/), it typically takes about two to two and a half weeks to hit
100 GDD’s in early May for our region.
Therefore, if we assume an average last frost date of May 15th,
we will continue to lower our risk of frost injury to soybeans with each day of
May that pass on the calendar before soybean planting commences. Conversely, the planting of soybeans at the end
of April would have an above average risk to a potential killing frost weather
event.
The yield data for
our eastern North Dakota and NW Minnesota region will show advantages to
earlier plant dates for each crop.
However, corn yield parameters also correlate strongly to harvested ears
per acre, and the quality of planting conditions does correlate strongly to
stand establishment numbers. It is due
to these factors primarily that we see a sub-optimum grain yields with
ultra-early plantings (see figure) versus a slight delay in planting. The data presented here does come from the
upper Midwest with Crookston, MN as one of the testing locations over an
eight-year period. See the full details
here: https://www.pioneer.com/us/agronomy/corn-planting-date-hybrid-maturity.html
This particular spring,
we are starting off with plenty of soil moisture, and we all know that “mudding
a crop in” can be tempting to gain an early start to the growing season –
especially with strong commodity prices.
If we get to the point of feeling like we are forced to start planting
the crop (after the first week of May), even though conditions are worrisome in
places, I’d recommend we start with the soybeans. Typical soybean seeding rates are four to five
times (at minimum) the corn seeding rates in kernels per acre numbers and the soybeans have
a lot better ability to overcome poor stand establishment to still achieve
optimum or near optimum yields.
Conversely, we typically can see full production potential on the corn
with plant dates pushed to May 22-25th range to obtain a greater
percentage of plants per acre established.
https://www.pioneer.com/us/agronomy/Effects-Cold-Temperatures-Following-Soybean-Planting.html
https://www.pioneer.com/us/agronomy/early-soybean-planting.html
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