Scouting

Farmers, paid scouts of all kinds and interested suppliers are scouting fields all over the world as I write this.  It's kind of amazing if you think about it.  We invest so much money in a crop, it behooves us to watch its progress to see how it is doing.  Plant stands have been taken now in America so I imagine most are scouting for weeds, insects, and diseases.  Now would be a good time to pull plant tissue for a plant tissue test in flowering corn, soybeans, spring wheat and other crops.

Corn pollination is being closely watched across the midwest.  Pollination is critical to full yield.  There are some problems but overall, pollination seems to be going pretty well.  Many notice some of the longest silks they can remember in recent history.  Excess water and temperature extremes have caused the corn plants to make sure there is enough silk for pollen to fall onto.

I just finished scouting 2,000 acres of soybeans bound for Asian delivery next year.  Overall that crop is in good shape.  The main reason I am there is to ensure the variety the buyer wants to buy is the one planted in the mapped fields.  I only found a couple of problems, probably due to seed mixups.  Clear or yellow hilum soybeans are in demand again around the world to make tofu and various foods containing soybeans.

While I am there, I check crop and field conditions, field borders, and identify every weed, disease and insect problem I find in that field.  Marestail and Giant Ragweed is marked in almost every field.  Most fields have only a light or low population but some are moderate populations and some fields have heavy areas of weeds where weed control failed.  I mark my scouting forms accordingly.

I've enjoyed walking fields since I was able to walk.  I like to teach others what I've learned also so I've trained many scouts.

How do crops look where you live?  The crop looks so good the market has taken $2 off the corn crop for fall delivery and $3 per bushel off the soybean crop.  This is cause for great concern when the farmers budget was predicting a higher price next year.  Extra bushels this year may offset this lost and it may not.

Scouting with the spray rig doesn't count.  You've got to get out and cover every acre of every field all summer if you really want to see what is going on in your fields.

That's the game of farming.

Ed Winkle