One of the first steps to a successful herbicide program is starting clean to allow the pre-emerge herbicide to reach the soil surface. The burndown also allows the opportunity to utilize other “effective” sites of action (SOA) that can’t be used in-season such as Gramoxone® SL 2.0. Spraying early in the spring provides the opportunity to control winter annuals like marestail and emerging summer annuals such as giant ragweed. When evaluating spring burndown options, we must consider if the herbicide has burndown only activity or burndown plus residual activity. Products like Liberty® and Gramoxone SL 2.0 will not have any residual activity but will provide very effective burndown activity. Other burndown products such as Sharpen® or metribuzin will provide residual value depending on the herbicide rate.

The New Year is here! This is a great time to evaluate your current cropping program and decide the areas you can seek to improve in 2021. Planters are a key priority for us in Practical Farm Research (PFR)®. The planter pass sets the stage for the rest of the growing season; its success is vital for raising higher yields. PFR has tested several planter attachments and aftermarket options.

Consumers continue to drive demand for organic crops, and the need to better understand organic systems and products has created an opportunity for PFR testing to help farmers who may be interested in the system. In 2020, Beck's dedicated a section of our Indiana PFR site exclusively to organic testing. In 2021, we plan to do the same at our IA PFR site in hopes to have multi-location testing that focuses solely on organic systems and products.

After the excitement of the new year, one way we can continue the “new” theme is to give you our brand new PFR Proven™ products and practices for corn. We already revealed some information last month about soybeans, so what’s new in the PFR Proven world of corn? Ding, ding, ding! Eighteen products and practices is the answer, so let’s take a look!

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

In today’s farm economy, we are always looking for ways to be efficient and profitable, while trying to keep costs in check. This is when the value of our Practical Farm Research (PFR)® data becomes part of your decision making. Since 1964, the Beck family has worked to bring new ideas to your farm to increase productivity and profit. Beck's PFR has developed the PFR Proven™ endorsement to help you decide which products and practices you should try in your operation. This year, we have identified PFR Proven strategies for success based on the key things we have learned in PFR that will lead you to higher soybean yields.

Ever wonder how different tillage practices can affect weed management? Find out in this video. 
 

As hard as it was, a challenging year like 2019 can still yield applicable insights. The important thing to do is carefully weigh all the factors that can impact your results and examine the data in light of those factors. This past spring, I asked an intern to work a plot and as he began to work the ground I found myself thinking “that may be the worst decision I have made in my 35-year ag career”. 

This season will also impact how we think about future decisions as it relates to soil tests and soil testing. I asked my friend Jamie Bultemeier, an agronomist with A&L Great Lakes Laboratories, to share his thoughts on the impact of 2019.

In this electrifying video, our team in El Paso tested the Weed Zapper at the CIL Organic Field Day to see if it would be a useful component in an organic weed control program.

In light of the remarkedly wet season that most of the Midwest has experienced, irrigation is likely in the back of most farmers' minds right now. That said, we continue putting irrigation/fertigation systems to the test with our Practical Farm Research (PFR)®. In the case of sub-irrigation, three of our PFR sites have been able to utilize tile drainage systems in certain areas on the sites and backfl ow water through them for a multi-functional drainage plus irrigation system.