Beat The Heat

In many areas, the drought that challenged many U.S. soybean farmers across the country last year has continued into the early months of 2013.

Preserving soil moisture can be hard, but Rob Myers, adjunct associate professor of plant sciences at the University of Missouri, shared these five management techniques that could help alleviate the effects of drought conditions.

Consider cool-season crops. Adding winter wheat or other cool-seasons to rotations breaks up disease and insect cycles as well as boosts soybean yields. Also, since cool-season crops are planted in the fall, when moisture is more plentiful, and harvested in June before the worst of a drought typically takes place, they avoid the late summer when drought conditions typically peak.

Think yield stability. Rather than concentrating solely on a single high yielding soybean variety, even one marketed as drought resistant, farmers should consider planting beans from multiple maturity groups that yield well in a variety of environments

Stagger planting dates. Planting crops early will avoid the late summer when soil is usually driest during a drought. On the flip side, having a portion of the soybean acreage planted a little later was helpful last year for areas that got late rain from Hurricane Isaac, allowing those soybeans to get some additional growth and yield better than the beans that matured earlier. Diversifying planting dates is always a good strategy to deal with unpredictable weather.