May is here and we are now at the point where many of us are wishing that the weather men or women would deliver a week of dry weather. A number of the people who noted the number of fog days in January were expecting a rainy April. The first part of the month brought rain to parts of the Midwest but mainly to the northern parts of Iowa.

Since the middle of April several large fronts have crossed the Midwest and delivered enough rain that the creeks and rivers finally have good stream flows. I have heard that the top few feet hold moisture while below 24 inches the soil remains dry.

In comparison, April of 2023 was completely dry. For now, we don’t have a sense of dread heading into the growing season.

The commodity grain markets seem to be waking up for a few reasons. There seems to be wild weather in some of the major crop growing areas in South America, namely Brazil and Argentina. I have heard reports of huge amounts of rain falling in parts of Brazil. I have been in a number of downpours where rain seems to be coming from all directions and small streams can turn into brownish huge rivers. And we have seen their weather can turn very wet and it may rain every day for a 35-day period. In that instance, we checked the condition of the soybean pods and the seeds had turned into a brownish, stinky goo.

The bad part of April and early May weather is that we have cold fronts clashing with warm fronts ending up getting severe storms and heaven forbid damaging tornados. For anyone going through one and having to pick up the pieces of your house or farmstead, it becomes a real gut punch. I have mentioned before that in 1971 I had the pleasure of being outside when an F2 twister hit our farm in Mitchell County on a day when most of the sky was clear and blue with few clouds. Then for some reason a narrow bank of clouds moved in dropping an inch of rain. Then the sky turned green. Then it sounded like a train heading in our direction. It was in July and all of the fields were covered with crops. There was no dirt to pick up. At first it looked like a large whorl wind that kept growing in size and the trees began to snap off and become airborne. I learned that day that pigs and cattle can fly, or at least they were up in the air. For the people affected in the areas in Iowa, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Texas, I wish you luck in putting the pieces back together and may your insurance adjustor treat you kindly.

Planting progress

Wouldn’t it be nice to have a guy like the Wizard of Oz that could tell you when the correct time to plant your corn and soybean acres was? Should a person begin planting corn real early when the soils are dry and the ground temperatures are in the mid-40s and heading upwards, but the seven-day forecast is for a few days where the nights are still dropping into the low 30s.

In 2023, when harvest was wrapped up, it became apparent that the highest yielding fields were those planted after the first week in May after the ground hit and stayed above 50 degrees F.

The same goes for soybeans. We are seeing that many crop advisors and crop magazines recommend planting beans in the first 10 days of April in the hopes of getting the plants to form additional branches.

This can happen, but the risk of having to replant or suffer stand loss is often a possibility. I would sooner aim for late April or early May planting after the ground temp has warmed and the beans will emerge faster and have a reduced risk of seeing one of the Oomycete fungal pathogens (Phytophthora, Pythium, Rhizoctonia …) affecting plant health. This is where the advice coming from a Canadian who spoke at a crops conference in Indiana on Dec 16, 2022, was to use a biological inoculant on the seed to make sure of colonization by a protective microbe rather than a pathogenic one.

Soybean planting progress

A high percentage of the cornstalk fields remain unplanted. Once it dries and the soil is fit, we will see planters in the fields after sundown. With 16- to 36-row planters, it doesn’t take long to finish each field.

My thoughts are that I would sooner plant beans only once in the season, so wait until the ground is at 45 or 50. The higher sugar content in the just emerged bean seedling make them more freeze tolerant, but if the temps drop below 30 degrees Fahrenheit and the plants have advanced beyond the crook stage, sub 30 degrees Fahrenheit can prove fatal.

Parts of Illinois had their usual late freeze and many acres will have to be replanted. I’d rather plant after the ground warms and then apply a hormone-producing microbe which induces each plant to form more branches. We have seen a combination of BranchOut along with a pint or quart of MicroBoost from Agronomy Rx produces an increase in branches. This can be done any time after emergence through V5.

After the plants reach R2 and form small pods placed and/or foliar fertilizers should be applied to help fill the pods. To achieve maximum seed size, foliar nutrition is needed to maximize seed size. The thought is that as the soils dry and mineral release is decreased, the ability to move enough minerals and sugar to the filling seeds is not adequate. Thus, supplementing seed fill via applications of highly available mineral packages directly to the foliage through the later R stages is important. Then realize that high yield soybeans will form thicker and denser canopies, increasing the chance of white mold (WM). This is when amino acid or complexed zinc can reduce or eliminate that problem.

Field status

Currently the corn which was planted in the April 10th through 24th window has emerged. Since then it has been too wet to walk those fields and take stand counts. This coming week’s weather forecast contains several days with a high percentage chance for rain. If we do get a nice week of sun and dry conditions, most of the corn crop could be in the ground by May 15. Let’s hope that happens.

The NASS statistics should give estimates of how each state is progressing with their planting progress.

Be aware that light trap catches have detected incoming black cutworm and a few other species which indicate that scouting for seedling damage may be important to liming stand loss.

Ken Ferrie, a crop advising agronomist in Illinois, wrote a column and did a podcast telling that by having his clients send in seeds of their major hybrids to a seed quality lab for analyses to test for cold germ, seedling vigor and pericarp injury — they did this early enough to get the findings weeks before the planting season. If the seed does not meet standards, they work through their seed dealers to make a switch to a different lot of higher grading seed. The labs have been reporting a higher incidence of problems with those issues. Might the 2023 drought have caused a portion of the seed coat or pericarp damage? He was speculating this was because of much of the 2023 growing season being very droughty.

A question that needs to be asked is how many seed fields within the Midwest are managed with a fertility program, which includes tissue or sap analysis, biologicals broadcast or in-furrow, and follow up with foliar nutrition to maximize plant health such that hard fungicides did not have to be applied.

Paleo Biotica — Yield and shield

In my last column, I mentioned the release and availability of a microbial mix with the bugs being discovered via deep sea soil cores and ancient amber sleuthing (think the Jurassic Park movie). Using that process, they found a number of ancient species capable of degrading the primary metabolite of the No. 1 herbicide sprayed worldwide.

Contrary to early advertising it does not become inert once it hits the soil. It binds to the soil clay layers in the soil and can persist for decades depending on soil type, clay content, soil pH and rainfall. Higher Haney scores indicate higher levels of microbial activity, but are they of the right species?

In that column I told of a problem occurring in Canadian fields last summer after a phosphite (PO3)-based foliar fertilizer was applied to the fields. As predicted by soil chemists, the application of a higher grade of P caused the non-selective herbicide to be desorbed off the clay and taken in through their roots.

The crops yellowed, then browned and died with yield reductions often being 90% due to the immune system dysfunction. The questions and unknowns are what rate of a PO3 needs to be applied to cause the herbicide desorption. Such research was not tackled at any university due to politics. The reason this is important and pertinent is that more companies are utilizing phosphite chelators in their foliar products. This could be important to livestock operations where heavy rates of manures have been applied regularly over decades. Lab testing has documented the concentration in each ton of poultry or hog manure. Soil testing for the product can be done at HRI lab in Fairfield at a cost of $320/sample. It may sound expensive but may be the best money spent. This phenomenon became a reality to cabbage growing Wisconsin farmers who were having crop quality failures due to the high residual herbicide levels chelating minerals important to producing saleable sauerkraut. It will be important to corn growers who may want to plant conventional hybrids or may have fields already susceptible to the problem.

Carol will be posting info on Paleo Biotica’s Yield and Shield on our website as well as info on the RDX-N. The former increased corn yields by 10 to 16 bushels per acre and cotton yields by 25% as it increased nutrient availability in the first season. The involved microbiologist said early data suggest that their facultative bacteria will work well when used in composting residue or could be added to hog pits.