"I live on some wet bottom clay soils, so drought is an inconvenience, even 30 miles away is some light ground where lack of rain is a serious thing.
Today looking at the crops here, it is like a switch was flipped. Yesterday it was stressed and all, sure its dry.
But today, wow, bean rolled in patches on the fields, corn is turning brown on the bottom leaves, brown on the top leaves.
Very sudden change, this heat just caught up to everything."
We can say the same in Ohio and it isn't heat and it is lack of moisture. Do we really know what we are looking at? Is it tillage or the lack of it?
Do you have restless tillage syndrome or lackluster no-till religion? After another summer of scouting, either one will fail you. I've seen tilled and no-tilled fields look good then peter out before the switch turned. The most eye catching thing I saw was planting date. The fields planted May 21 look best with May 15 coming right behind. All other planting dates fall short as far as crop progress to this date here and in other states.
Still, those dates have some beans "rolling" and 112 day corn that looks like it is a month or two farther ahead.
Isn't there more to this than tillage, no-till, drought, flood, heat cold? Isn't it more than lack of gypsum and cover crops to build soil water holding capacity?
This picture on Crop Talk from my friend Brian in Indiana taken on his way to Missouri looks like the top of corn fields around here, even though we have had better growing conditions than they have.
Ed Winkle
Do you have restless tillage syndrome or lackluster no-till religion? After another summer of scouting, either one will fail you. I've seen tilled and no-tilled fields look good then peter out before the switch turned. The most eye catching thing I saw was planting date. The fields planted May 21 look best with May 15 coming right behind. All other planting dates fall short as far as crop progress to this date here and in other states.
Still, those dates have some beans "rolling" and 112 day corn that looks like it is a month or two farther ahead.
Isn't there more to this than tillage, no-till, drought, flood, heat cold? Isn't it more than lack of gypsum and cover crops to build soil water holding capacity?
This picture on Crop Talk from my friend Brian in Indiana taken on his way to Missouri looks like the top of corn fields around here, even though we have had better growing conditions than they have.
Ed Winkle
Ed - I have been working on applying Liebigs law of minimum on how it effects soybeans. Working with what the soil can hold for water and how much water comes from various rain fall. Then try to understand how much water the bean plant needs at each stage and how much of each of the nutrients it needs.
ReplyDeleteCover crops are part of the answer but fixing things takes time. We are an inpatient society and the math to build organic matter is depressing.... Yes Rome wasn't built in a day I know...
Today's society expresses its self well in a JG Wentworth commercial "Its my money and I need it now!"
I'm a long way from fully understanding all of the interactions but everything works better with some rain and "rain is a good thing!"
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4VKy69sE4VY&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D4VKy69sE4VY
Brad, the most rapid change I've witnessed in increasing soybean yields is soil health and nutrition. Calcium, gypsum, the majors and the minors make the most difference here.
ReplyDeleteI've been able to do that while also keeping a cover the last three years running.
It shows in my crop.
Ed
Brad, the most rapid change I've witnessed in increasing soybean yields is soil health and nutrition. Calcium, gypsum, the majors and the minors make the most difference here.
ReplyDeleteI've been able to do that while also keeping a cover the last three years running.
It shows in my crop.
Ed