Stand Establishment Critical for Early Planted Corn and Soybean

May 14, 2021

By Mark Licht and Zach Clemens

Planting conditions in April were pretty good for planting. In fact, there were many reports of planting in early April. Unfortunately, April was much cooler and dryer than normal. Early planted corn and soybean took longer to germinate and emerge because of these cooler conditions. Additionally, as the dry conditions persisted there was a lot of talk about what planting depth to – plant deeper into soil moisture or plant at normal depths hoping for rain.

Both situations require the need for using early season scouting to check for stand establishment now that corn and soybean are emerging. Early season scouting is an important part of crop production and should be started with crop emergence. It is important to get out in the fields early to see how well planting went and how seedbed conditions may have influenced seed germination and emergence.

Checking stand establishment involves three key steps: (1) plant population, (2) emergence uniformity, and (3) plant spacing. Attaining the desired plant population is a key to attaining high yields. Both emergence uniformity and plant to plant spacing can be indicators of planter performance but also an indicator of seedling emergence issues. Some seedling emergence issues can be related to non-uniform soil moisture or seed depth placement. While others could be related to seed and seedling mortality from pathogen, insects, or poor-quality seed.

Emergence uniformity is considered problematic if early versus late emerging plants are greater than 2 weeks apart for corn. For soybean emergence uniformity very rarely results in lost yield potential that warrants replanting. Like emergence uniformity, plant to plant spacing is more problematic for corn than soybean. However, if soybean has large gaps greater than 2 feet, this can be reason for concern.

Source : iastate.edu

Video: Western Canadian Agriculture: Hard Times Made the World's Best Farmers

Western Canadian agriculture produced the most advanced farmers in the world not through abundance but through adversity. The crow rate fell. The wheat price went nowhere. The brown envelopes stopped.

When the subsidies disappeared, the bad farmers left and the good ones stayed. And the ones who stayed could not just grow wheat anymore. They started growing lentils and canola and peas and flax and faba beans. They built crop rotation. They got serious about agronomy because there was no government backstop. That process produced the Western Canadian agriculture Dennis Bulani describes in this clip: the most advanced, most educated farming culture in the world.

His contrast with Iowa corn and soybean farmers is sharp. At a DeKalb farmer meeting in Okoboji, Iowa, he asked what crop rotation they ran. Beans on corn stubble, corn on bean stubble. How do you fertilize? The co-op agronomist handles it. Have you considered other crops? No need. We make so much money on corn and soybeans. Western Canadian agriculture was never allowed that comfort. And now those Iowa farmers are watching soybean markets lock up with China and corn prices slide, and they do not have the agronomy knowledge or the research base to pivot. Western Canadian farmers adapted on a dime because they had done it before.

Dennis also makes the case that Western Canadian agriculture keeps adapting in real time. Low commodity prices over the past year have pushed growers to look seriously at precision spot-spray technology. He knows a neighbor who bought a sprayer with the seeing-eye system and sprayed only 80 out of 320 acres. As a chemical retailer Dennis acknowledges that will affect his sales. He supports it anyway, because if it advances Canadian agriculture and makes farmers money, that is a good outcome.

The lesson Dennis draws from the tale of two farms: continuous improvement is the only durable strategy. When canola was $22 a bushel some growers went to Arizona instead of the Crop Production Show. When the price came down those same growers came back to the research and the discipline. Products do not go on Rack Petroleum's shelves unless they pass a replicated trial first. That is what Western Canadian agriculture built through hard times: farmers who do the work whether the times demand it or not.

Dennis Bulani is CEO of Rack Petroleum and Ultimate Yield in Biggar, Saskatchewan. Dan Aberhart hosts GTF Productions, Western Canadian Agriculture's foremost live briefing platform and its foremost AI training platform for ag operators