"At Your Service" Newspaper Column

 

Michael R. Milam

Agronomy Specialist and County Program Director

For Daily Dunklin Democrat-At Your Service

October 19, 2007

Weather conditions continue to change

            Our crop harvest in Southeast Missouri has come to a halt due to heavy rainfall, but it is still ahead of last year and the average. According to the Missouri Crop Progress and Condition Report for the week ending October 14, 81 percent of our cotton has been harvested; this is over one month ahead of last year and our average.  The previous week, we were at 65 percent, so it shouldn’t take long with a few dry days before harvest is complete. Rice harvest is at 96 percent compared with 88 percent from the previous week. Soybeans harvest is 57 percent complete in Southeast Missouri compared with 36 percent last week. A year ago, we had only harvested 29 percent of the crop.

            It’s amazing that after Monday’s rain, the U.S. Drought Monitor of October 14 shows SE Missouri in the moderate to severe drought category. This will gradually change one we get a few more rains to reduce the “moisture debt” that we have accumulated all year. This year to date we have accumulated 27.6 inches of rainfall at Glennonville compared with 42.5 during the same period last year. Clarkton had 28.9 this year compared to 42.0 last year. The Cardwell weather station accumulated 28.9 inches this year which is much closer to the 31.89 inches last year, but last year, we were never moisture stressed for prolonged periods as we were this year.

            Crop producers are making preparations to get the harvest finished, but they have also been taking soil samples and making notes related to weed control, re-hipping rows and sowing a wheat cover crop in the middles. Now that we finally have excess rainfall and water is standing in the fields, they will be looking at drainage and making plans for putting some fields to grade for furrow irrigation or filling in the holes where the center pivots are being used.

            With the finding of Asian Soybean Rust earlier this season, many producers are trying to decide if they want to plant soybeans next year. This decision should not be taken lightly. If a producer grows soybeans as a low-input crop, then they might want to switch to another crop. For those growers who have been applying fungicides already to increase their yields, they are already willing to make the investment to push their soybeans to higher yields.

Speaking of higher soybean yields, a Missouri producer set a new yield record last year at 139.39 bushels per acre in a 40 acre field. Kip Cullers of Stark City, Missouri easily beat the previous soybean yield record of 118 bushels per acre set in 1993. So this year, he entered the yield contest again and did ever better at 154.74 bushels per acre.

Culler’s credits his success to several factors. The variety that he grew was Pioneer 94M80, a 4.8 maturity soybean that contains the Roundup Ready gene and is soybean cyst nematode resistant. He says that it responds well to his program.

He also had a plant population of 220,000 plants per acre when the plants were 6 inches tall, but this wasn’t as many plants as he grew last year when it was 245,000 plants per acre. So under the growing conditions this year, it doesn’t appear that the difference of 25, 000 plants per acre made a difference.

This year he used a Monasem planter rather than a drill that he had used the previous year. With this planter he planted 300,000 seed in twin rows 7.5 inches apart on 30-inch beds. He used a new seed treatment, Optimize, to boost his yield. He says that the roots were twice as big on the plants with the seed treatment compared with plants that did not have the seed treatment. 

The field was irrigated. He and a hired hand irrigated the field every day. It said that this was to provide moisture and to keep the plants cooler. Since, he used Headline fungicide; he was not concerned about the canopy moisture providing the conditions for outbreaks of foliar disease. He did not receive any rain on this field from July 3 until the end of August and the temperature soared above 100 degrees during mid-August.

The soil type is a Newtonia red sandy loam that has been very productive in the past. This soil is very well drained. He would walk the fields each day to make sure that no problems were developing. He applied the Headline fungicide at first bloom and again three weeks later. He also applied an application of Warrior insecticide to prevent insects from injuring the plants.

While his approach may not be realistic for the average producer, he has shown that good management can result in high yields. This also shows that if someone is interested, they can do research and develop a system that fits their operation and produce maximum yield on their farms.

 

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