Planting reminder for 2011 Soybean Yield Contest Announcement

The Wisconsin Soybean Program has announced the 2011 WI Soybean Yield Contest. This contest encourages growers to challenge themselves to produce higher yields and to be rewarded for their efforts. Top growers will be recognized for achieving high yields while using sound, environmentally friendly production practices that are profitable as well.

Trophies and cash prizes will be awarded to first, second, and third place winners in each of two contest classes: non-irrigated and irrigated. The winner is the entry that has the highest soybean yield based on bushels per acre at 13 percent moisture.

Contest brochures, rules and entry forms can be found at www.coolbean.info.

For more information feel free to contact Shawn Conley at 608-262-7975

Status of early planted soybean (Early relative to 2011 weather)

Understandably most growers are still concerned about getting all of their corn planted and debating when they should switch their corn relative maturity (Corn Hybrid Relative Maturity Switch Dates for 2011). This coupled with cool soil temperatures has delayed the progress of our 2011 soybean plantings. Many resources suggest that soybean should not be planted until soil temperatures reach 50° F and to tell the truth we were nervous to start planting our soybean variety trials until those temperatures where achieved (Table 1). With that said I, like many, saw the calendar date and have recently experienced several week delays in May due to wet weather so decided to start planting soybean on May 4^th (This is called the do as I say not as I do paradigm). Given the soil temperature and lack of accumulated gdu's (28 based on soil temp and base 50° F) I was surprised to see how far the soybean development has progressed to date. This furthers my thought that the base temp for soybean germination is less than 50° F. That is a topic for another day.

For more detailed information regarding soybean emergence please see Predicting When Soybeans Will Emerge.

Table 1. Soil temperature monitored at 2 inch depth at the Arlington Agricultural Research Station in 2011.

Image 1. Developmental images of soybean planted on May 4^th at Arlington, WI in the long term-rotation study.

Wheat Disease Update

Had the chance to check the wheat at both Arlington and Janesville today (Monday, 5/2). The wheat growth stage was Feekes 4 (Zadoks 30), on average, and was also looking very good at both locations. At this growth stage, we have often received many questions as to whether the use of a foliar fungicide is warranted? Scouting in these fields indicated that there was very little of note in terms of disease. What was noted was just a little bit of Septoria on the lowest leaves and our recommendations would not be to spray a foliar fungicide at this time for that disease.

Soil Temperature and Moisture and Seed Treatments

While today's (Monday) weather has been the sort of day we have been lacking recently, the USDA-NASS Wisconsin Crop Progress for April 25th indicates that in almost all of the reporting districts, subsoil moisture is either adequate to surplus! As we get itchy to be in the fields planting, a very relevant question to ask is if seed treatment fungicides will be effective in soybean in 2011. Our experience over the past few years has been that these products can be a cost-effective management tool. We have seen consistent responses in both inoculated and non-inoculated trials for some products. Several factors drive this response including soil temperature and soil moisture. Below are the soil temperature and soil moisture levels for Arlington and Chilton over the past 30 days. What should be rather obvious is that the soil temperature dropped steadily as the month progressed. Temperatures have only recently begun to increase but are still holding in the mid-40's. Soil moisture has been good at both locations and increased with either recent snows or rain. As such, right now conditions are at such where the use of a seed treatment may be warranted and effective, especially in reduced tillage to no-till environments.

Arlington soil temperature and soil moisture.





Chilton soil temperature and soil moisture.

2011 - Foliar Fungicides for Field Crops

With grain commodity prices remaining strong, we have updated our "Number of bushels needed to cover the cost of a foliar fungicide application" table for 2011. We will be shortly updating this record on the Field Crops Plant Pathology website. For 2011, we have the estimated bushels across a wide range of commodity prices as well as fungicide costs and application prices. Commodity prices range from $3 to 13 per bushel while fungicide cost and application prices range from $13 to 27 per acre. Fungicide prices were estimated from several sources, including consultation with industry colleagues. In general, the breakeven number of bushels (across the range of prices) ranges from 1 to 9 bushels per acre. This is meant to be a guide as other costs can include wheel track damage in wheat and soybean with fungicide applications, if made using ground equipment. Our best results for response to a fungicide application are when conditions are favorable for disease development and we have knowledge of the variety reaction to specific diseases that can cause yield loss.

Early Assessment of Wheat Stands Suggest We are Off to a Great Start

A visual survey of our Arlington, Janesville, and Lancaster winter wheat variety trials suggest that green-up of the 2011 winter wheat crop is occurring 5-7 days later than last year. We were unable to accurately assess our Chilton site last week due to delayed crop development. Our green-up assessment at the southern locations suggest very little winter-kill occurred (Image 1). Given the calendar and the inclement spring weather-to-date growers and retailers are anxious to apply nitrogen. It is important to remember that the functional purpose of spring N is to 1. stimulate tillering and 2. provide crop nutrition. If ample tillering (> 70 tillers per square foot) has occurred growers can delay N applications up to pre-joint (Feekes 4-5; Zadoks 30). This practice will aid in minimizing early spring N loss. Applications of N made after this growth stage may lead to wheel track damage. If growers have < 70 tillers per square foot it is important to get across those fields as soon as possible to minimize yield loss due to low tiller/head counts.

(Lancaster variety trial - T. Wood)

2011 Winter Wheat Workshops

Thank you to everyone who participated in our recently completed winter wheat workshops! We had a great time over the three days and really enjoyed the discussions and interactions with everyone. We will be posting shortly on the Field Crops Plant Pathology website notes from the meeting and a summary of participant evaluations. In the meantime, enjoy a few of the photos from the workshop!