Looking for visual differences of weed pressure between fields with 1, 2, and 3 SOAs pre-emerge? We’ll we’ve got you covered.

Fusarium Head Blight (FHB), also called head scab, is a disease that can affect many small grain crops, but its economic impact is the largest on wheat. The causal pathogen of this disease is Fusarium graminearum, and it can significantly impact yield and grain quality. The disease can produce many mycotoxins. Deoxynivalenol (DON), also known as vomitoxin, is the primary mycotoxin screened for at grain delivery points.

There are many reasons a corn crop may fail. In some years it’s a late frost and in others, soil surface crusting. Regardless of the reason the stand fails, it is important to destroy the original crop before replanting. Yield losses can occur if just 5,000 of the original corn plants remain to compete with the new stand. Therefore, it is imperative to successfully eradicate as much of the existing stand as possible.

Check out this agronomy update to see how our 15 in. row population study is progressing at our PFR research plot in Murray, Kentucky!

I recently attended Dr. Larry Steckel's University of Tennessee Weed Tour and I wanted to give you an update on a few of the new herbicide programs that are coming out that can be used in double crop or high biomass situations.

Check out the video below to see the difference in residual formulations from this cover crop termination study.

Did this year's freezing temperatures affect your yield potential?

While total wheat acres are down this year due to commodity prices, there there are still several thousand acres of Beck’s wheat planted throughout the South.

Unfortunately, that wheat has had a very troubled start this season. During planting, we experienced several weeks of dry weather that slowed emergence and even delayed planting. Then, in early January, we experienced two weather events that brought below normal temperatures (single digits in some areas) for extended periods of time. I have had several concerned farmers call and ask me if these weather events damaged their wheat crop and, true to my agronomist nature, my answer has been, “it depends on several factors.”

Over the past few weeks, I've observed a high amount of soybean slug damage that has become a problem as of late.
 
These slugs actually eat soybean plants as they come up through the ground and because common insecticides are not active on them, they have the potential to cause yield loss.

Many parts of Indiana, Missouri, and Kentucky have received over 4 in. of rain in a very short amount of time which has caused severe flooding in some areas. Because of this, I have received a number of questions from farmers wondering how long corn can survive under water and how much of their nitrogen (N) will still be there when the water finally recedes.

Do you know what the most abundant element in the air is? It’s not oxygen. It’s not hydrogen. It’s actually nitrogen (N). That’s right, one of the biggest input costs on your farm is actually floating around in the air you’re breathing. But since it’s a diatomic molecule (N₂=gas), your corn crop can’t access it. Therefore, you have to buy and apply it to your crop. Soybeans, on the other hand, are legumes which means they can capture that free-floating N gas and, with the help of some soil microbes, convert it to a usable form of N.

Beck’s agronomist, Austin Scott, provides an update to last week’s wheat webinar on freeze damage.