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.

As farmers are preparing for the upcoming 2021 planting season, winter is a great time to review planter maintenance and install upgrades. Travis Burnett, northern Indiana Beck’s field sales agronomist, and southern IN Beck’s field sales agronomist, Travis Coleman, inspect what to look for on planters to prep for successful planting passes.

Having a hard time controlling marestail weeds in your corn and soybean fields? Join Beck’s Hybrids Ohio field sales agronomist, Luke Schulte, with Tennessee field sales agronomist (now Area Team Leader), Austin Scott, as they discuss burndown and residual options to reduce marestail weed pressure.

Nine years ago, the Stephensons started their farm with 25 acres and a dream. Now, they farm 600 acres of corn and soybeans in the heart of the eastern Corn Belt.

Another season of Practical Farm Research (PFR)® data is in the books. Naturally, the first section I check out is the PFR Proven™ section. This section is very important when it comes to making decisions on your operation. For a product or practice to earn the PFR Proven title, it must be tested at multiple locations for a minimum of three years. In each of the three years, it must provide a positive yield gain each and every year and average a positive ROI over the combined years of research.

Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness…” Genesis 1:26

God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. Genesis 1:27

Love God. Love people. Live design. That is the motto of Freedom International Ministries, and it’s one that has significant meaning to the Beck family and many of our employees.

Farmers and others in the agricultural community have waited patiently since June for a decision regarding the labeled use of approved dicamba containing herbicide formulations for use within the Roundup Ready 2 Xtend® (X2) and XtendFlex® (XF) soybean systems. The wait is finally over, and farmers now have another valuable tool to combat herbicide resistance.

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.

Nitrogen management is always a moving target. Rate, timing, source, and placement dictate yield when it comes to nitrogen management. Mother Nature has just as much influence on nitrogen management, if not more, compared to the previously mentioned factors.