Spring is here! Hopefully you’ve had a chance to look through the 2020 PFR Book and pick out a PFR Proven™ product or practice to try for 2021. With planting season here, we wanted to share a few early-season PFR Proven products and practices to consider implementing on your farm this spring.

Soybean yields ultimately depend on the number and weight of the seeds harvested per acre. Soybean yield is determined by nodes per acre (plants per acre x nodes per plant), pods per node, seeds per pod, and seed weight.

We're serious about herbicide systems - no matter what soybean technology you plant. 

For years there has been a focus on achieving the perfect “picket fence” spacing in corn fi elds. As a little girl, I was taught that you could just about fi nd a corn seed in the distance from your thumb to your middle fi nger down the row. Years of research has shown that when corn plants are not spaced perfectly, yield potential lowers. Plants that are too close to one another start to compete for sunlight, water, and nutrients, and one plant will end up dominating while the other will become the “weed.”

Over the past couple of decades, the ag industry has increased its focus on seed treatment research and development. This, coupled with the more challenging environment soybean seed is planted into as farmers plant earlier and more rapidly, has led to seed treatment being included on most soybean seed planted today.

The spring of 2019 has been nothing but challenging for most Midwest farmers. Because of these challenges, we could see more soybean diseases. Because we experienced plenty of rainfall both before planting and after soybean emergence, certain diseases like phytophthora root and stem rot, brown stem rot, rhizoctonia, brown spot, and white mold could show up in soybean fields. These diseases prefer wet/saturated environments and spells of cool/humid conditions. As a result, crop management throughout the growing season will be key to protecting yield potential.

As you start to plan your post-herbicide application trip for your soybean crops, you may be looking for ways to maximize weed control. With the ever-growing list of resistant weeds, proper weed management techniques are more important than ever. Heavy spring rains may cause the pre-emergent herbicides to break down earlier in some fields this year. Therefore, another layer of in-season residual herbicide will be critical this year.

You asked for it, so now we’re rolling it out for you!

All his life, Jim Harper of Louisiana has wanted to be a farmer. “My father was a farmer. From the time I was small, following him around and working on the farm growing up, I wanted to be a farmer.” Jim recalls.

“When I was a child, we raised seed corn. We used to detassel the seed corn by hand. That was a great memory for me. I would do that every summer. It was hard work, but I liked it. I just, I love being outdoors. I love being in the country. Sometimes it's hard to describe, but it's just a love of being on the farm, being on the land.”

The Wildy family has a strong reputation as outstanding Arkansas farmers. In 2015, they were honored as the Arkansas Farm Family of the year. But their legacy goes back even further than that. “My granddad was the Arkansas Master Farmer back in 1920, I think it was.” David Wildy beams, pointing to a newspaper clipping proudly displayed in the farm office. “And then my dad was the Arkansas Master Farmer in 1956 or so.”