As you set forth your 2020 vision, there are new technologies at play in the seed industry. Trait names, trade names, and marketing campaigns can all obscure the message — making it difficult to discern the right traits for your farm. In an effort to help you understand one new technology in the corn market, Beck’s Director of Research, Dr. Kevin Cavanaugh, answered a few common questions.

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.

“Jesus leaving 99 to find 1 seems crazy…until you are that 1.”

Jesus speaking…”What man among you, if he has a hundred sheep and has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open pasture and go after the one which is lost until he finds it?

I think this is a spring that most of us will never forget. From a marketing perspective, we experienced several curve balls since I wrote my last Crop Talk article. We had bullish sentiment going into the March 29th Quarterly Stocks and Planting Intentions, only to find more grain and higher planting intentions for corn. That caused prices to tumble. With that we put spring lows in Dec corn and Nov beans on May 13th at $3.63 and $8.15 ½.

This season has been one for the record books for nearly every state in the Corn Belt. Extreme rainfall and delayed planting forced many farmers to plant well into June and in some cases, July. As every seasoned farmer knows, conditions like what we saw in 2019 will have consequences. A carefully laid fall harvest plan will help to limit further losses come harvest time. If we look back one year to 2018, many of these same environmental conditions occurred across Southern Minnesota and Northern Iowa. There are lessons to learn and adapt to help us be more successful in 2019 across the Midwest.

Soils are anything but monolithic; chemistry, soil type, management history, and, ultimately, yield potential vary acre by acre and inch by inch. Farmers must balance the precision of intensive sampling with the expense of sampling and the practicality of actionable management units.

Every day farmers rise to the challenge. They put on their boots and get to work — when the sun is beating down, when the wind rages with an icy chill, when the sky unleashes the rain. They face every trial life throws at them with resilience and determination all because they love to farm. If you ever wonder why a farmer does all he or she does, just talk to one, or four.

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.

The never-ending rains and flooding of this season have provided each of you with a host of challenges along the way. The excessive moisture has led to many issues that are obvious and easily detected – compaction, nitrogen (N) defi ciency, foliar diseases, weed issues, etc. However, a potential lurking issue may be just at your feet or, more importantly, just below the soil surface.

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.