Crop Update: What beautiful weather! Grateful for the crops that are being harvested! Also, grateful to hear some are blowing out combines after harvest in these heavily infested palmer fields before moving to the next field. That’s the first step in managing palmer for the future. Regarding combine cleanout, Market Journal had a video at: https://youtu.be/UtSAaWtMTS4 and CropWatch had an article at: https://go.unl.edu/skfh if you’d like more information.

Managing heavy palmer fields after harvest: Palmer and waterhemp seed survive for 5-7 years. With each plant producing an average of 500,000 seeds, it only takes a few plants to create a mess.

It’s been encouraging to see the rye and other small grains being drilled in fields; I realize it’s also been hard to irrigate them up after such a long irrigation season. Small grains such as rye, wheat, and oats have been proven to significantly reduce palmer, even in the absence of residual herbicide use compared to a no cover crop control. With the addition of a residual herbicide, there was no difference between using a cover crop and the check treatment. However, the way I look at it, the cover crop was another tool to take some of the pressure off the herbicide from having to do all the work. The main reason for that is because these small grains keep the soil surface covered. Palmer germinates when it senses red light on a bare soil surface, so keeping the soil covered can help reduce early season palmer germination. The small grains are also beneficial at reducing diseases such as white mold and sudden death syndrome.

If one isn’t interested in cover crops but is already using reduced tillage, another plan going forward will be to use a PRE- herbicide with residual followed by POST- with residual and get to canopy closure. Essentially, the strategy there is to keep the seeds from germinating.

For those who plan on disking, the research showed that disking once and not disking again for 3 years resulted in palmer reduction of 80-100% by year 3. However, disking each year allowed the seed to keep coming to the surface where it could germinate (depending on the herbicides and timing used). So, planting a cover crop after disking to cover the soil is one option to help reduce palmer germination in the spring. For those not interested in cover crops, having a strong herbicide program of a PRE- with residual followed by a POST- with residual sooner than you think you may need it, may be a strategy. One can also include cultivation followed by a residual herbicide, depending on canopy closure. The use of tillage, flaming, and electrocution are also being used in organic and some conventional systems.

Finishing Replant Crops: Grateful to be at this point in the season where much of the replant corn is 1/4 milk or further! Hybrids will vary regarding growing degree units (GDUs) to finish. A GDD tracking tool to help is https://mygeohub.org/groups/u2u/purdue_gdd. Regarding irrigation, below is the amount of water needed to finish corn. Most of the beans should be close to done for irrigating.

• Beginning dent needs 5.0” water, around 24 days to maturity, 25-55% yield loss potential.
• ¼ milk needs 3.75” water, about 19 days to maturity, 15-35% yield loss potential.
• ½ milk needs 2.25” water, about 13 days to maturity, 5-10% yield loss potential.
• ¾ milk needs 1.0” water, about 7 days to maturity, around 3% yield loss potential.

We knew replant crops would be a target for insect and disease pressure. It’s hard to see the corn earworm impact crops for such a large area as what they have this replant corn. Even fields that were sprayed once still have ear damage on a good 50% of the plants. The earworm feeding has allowed entry of fungi such as those causing white/pink Fusarium ear mold to varying degrees on the ears. Also seeing some blue-gray Penicillium ear mold and some sprouted kernels. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much we could practically do about it and there’s nothing we can do now till harvest. The presence of mold does not automatically mean the presence of mycotoxins. For harvest, it’ll be important to set combines to blow out any lighter, damaged kernels. Will share more on grain management in storage later.

Stem Borer: Have heard some disappointment about soybean yields which I feel is mostly due to beans being pushed too fast with the weather. Soybean stem borer is also being blamed, but it hasn’t been proven via research to reduce yield unless beans become lodged/break off. To understand why, it’s important to understand corn and soybean physiology. Soybeans are dicots like trees and the xylem and phloem are found in rings towards the outside of the stem instead of the center. So the stem borer hollowing out the soybean center doesn’t affect the soybean vascular bundles, but insects like gall midge working on the outside of the stem can. This differs from monocots like corn where the xylem and phloem are arranged throughout the stem. Thus, I don’t think stem borer is the reason for lower soybean yields that weren’t due to lodging/breaking off this year.