Larry “Legend” Bird – NBA
Hall of Famer
This
particular night in New Orleans (March 12, 1985) against the Atlanta Hawks,
Bird would record his career highest scoring game – 60 points in a 126-115 road
win. Bird was so hot (shot over 61% from
the field for the night), that by the end of the 4th quarter he was
calling his next shot to the opposition as he was jogging back up the court
after an offensive possession. And, sure
enough he delivered with a three-pointer right in front of the Hawk bench on
the left side of the court. However, the
bucket was waived-off because of a whistled foul before the shot… a foul that pushed
Bird into the Hawks bench, and wouldn’t you know it – right into the trainer’s
lap!
Even
the most skilled producers in the ag-sector probably do not have the confidence
and/or arrogance of calling their own shot in today’s agriculture climate. With so many moving parts to the business,
profitable ag production can be a very humbling experience with various challenges
presented year to year. Under recent
stresses, it’s difficult to build the confidence needed to say exactly how we
are going to succeed on the corn, soybeans, and spring wheat crop, but one
thing we do know is that we’ll give it our best shot!
Weather and
Corn Development
We’ll
start off this week with wet conditions across most all of northeast North
Dakota and northwest Minnesota. Temperatures
will cool off to average in the low 70’sF for the remainder of the week. If temps hold close to that forecast, we
should accumulate around 80-85 corn GDD’s over the 7-day span or about one
V-stage of corn development for the week.
https://www.agry.purdue.edu/ext/corn...
/VStagePrediction.html
I’ll estimate most of the corn in the region was
planted around May 15th.
Therefore, I’ll provide NDAWN corn GDD maps starting at that point moving
forward for the growing season. Most of
the region sits between 300 to 350 GDD’s for the season to date. If you take 125 GDD’s for emergence and 80
GDD’s for each leaf stage we currently have corn in the 2-4 leaf stage – which
correlates to my visual observations.
I’ll count on your weather app for the best
guidance through the 7-8 day forecast, but looking beyond that, I’ve found this
site from NOAA to be fairly reliable for a general 8-14 day outlook (next week). https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/predictions/814day/...
During this time frame the forecast is to have greater
chances of being above average for temperatures, while the precipitation
forecast is for equal chances of being above or below average.
Now that we have
the crop off to a strong start across the region, let’s look at the July-Aug-Sept
time frame for a long range 3-month outlook to try and see how the remainder of
growing season may progress. This
timeframe forecast from NOAA reveals equal chances for both above and below
average precipitation, but for temperatures, there is a slightly greater chance
that we should experience warmer than average conditions. Overall, an optimistic outlook for the late
summer and early autumn months. https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/predictions/seasonal.php... Nationwide, the planting progress for corn and soybeans continues at a very strong pace. Currently, the USDA reports the nation at 97% planted for corn (94% is the 5-yr average), and 89% of the planted corn has emerged (above the 5-yr average of 84%). For soybeans, 86% of the intended acres have been planted (79% is the 5-yr average), while 67% of the soybeans have emerged (61% is the 5-yr average).
For crop condition, the corn crop has 75% of the acres in the good to excellent category, while the soybeans rate at 72% good to excellent.
The USDA says spring wheat is 96% sown with the 5-yr average of 97%, but the crop is looking good with an 81% crop condition report in the good or excellent category.
For the state of North Dakota, it is reporting planting progress of 90% corn, 83% soybeans, 97% spring wheat, and 62% sunflowers as of Monday, June 8th. Canola is not reported.
This will be my last planting report update for the spring. USDA’s Crop Progress updates are at this website: https://usda.library.cornell.edu/concern/publications/8336h188j
Monday
this week was a big day for dicamba and RR2Xtend® soybeans, after last week’s ruling
by the 9th Circuit Court on the US federal label status regarding
XtendiMax™, Fexepan™, and Enginia™. Even
though there was some unprecedented language used by the 9th Circuit
Court, the EPA still has regulatory control and final determination of all
pesticide labels for the country. The
EPA’s rebuttal statement took a few days to manufacture, but it clarified the
situation. There are two main parts to
EPA’s statement:
·
Further distribution of products is
prohibited (unless under a proper disposal or return to the company – Bayer®,
Corteva®, or BASF®)
·
Growers and commercial applicators may use existing stocks
of product that were in their possession on or before June 3rd
(effective date of Circuit Court decision).
All
label restrictions (federal and state) remain in effect for dicamba use in
soybeans for the 2020 season. As you
know many states have additional restrictions beyond the EPA mandates. Bayer® and BASF® remain under obligation to
submit re-registration info into the EPA as the label on all three products was
set to expire in December this year.
Bayer Nearing Glyphosate and Cancer Litigation
Settlement
At
the end of May, Bayer made a statement that it is making progress towards a
settlement regarding glyphosate and cancer.
The settlement should be announced by the end of June and is forecasted
to cost Bayer about $10 Bil to resolve the matter. Bayer’s stock price has seen a bit of an
increase over the past month, but is still at a fraction today ($19-20/share)
versus June 2017 (about 10 months after the Monsanto purchase) of $140/share.
http://news.agropages.com/News/NewsDetail---35352-e.htm...
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-monsanto-m-a-bayer-deal...
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-monsanto-m-a-bayer-deal...
The Bayer
camp can’t seem to catch a break lately as dicamba falls under the spot light
with links to cancer and now last week’s injunction of XtendiMax™ on Xtend®
soybeans by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Many growers in this region that I have
conversed with are not going to tolerate future potential in-season herbicide
management limitations. These growers
have indicated they will move to other soybean weed management technologies and
move quickly. We’ll see how Bayer®
responds to the difficult task of reassuring growers that Xtend® soybean seed
is a sound investment for 2021. Corteva®
maintains its public position that they will have both Enlist-3® and Xtend®
soybean varieties to sell for 2021 planting.
NDSU Crop and Pest Report – Soybean Herbicide
Options
A
supplemental edition of the NDSU Crop and Pest Report came out on Thursday
after the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals announcement regarding
dicamba registrations for RR2Xtend® soybean use. This supplemental edition covers alternative
herbicide use for tough to control broadleaf weeds if dicamba is unavailable to a
grower.
·
Waterhemp: PPO herbicides (Group 14) – Flexstar (fomesafen),
Cobra or Ultra Blazer – target small weed size (1-2”)
·
Kochia: PPO herbicides (Group 14) – Flexstar (fomesafen),
Cobra or Ultra Blazer – target small weed size (1-2”)
·
Common Lambsquarter: Harmony (thifensulfuron)
·
Common Ragweed – FirstRate (cloransulam – Group 2) and
Flexstar
·
Horseweed/Maristail – FirstRate
Many of
these weed species can be multi-resistant to glyphosate, ALS and/or PPO
herbicides, so be diligent in choosing tank-mix partners with glyphosate under
the circumstances. I would consider the
use of a layby herbicide (i.e. metolachlor) in conjunction with a post-emerge
herbicide mix to aid in further weed control.
COVID-19 Update
– Australia and China Trade War Brewing
Australia had the audacity to ask for an
international inquiry into the origins of COVID-19, and that move has escalated
tensions between their country and China. The Chinese have since suspended beef imports
from four of Australia’s largest meat processors and imposed hefty tariffs on
Australian barley. You have to give
credit to Australia for asking about in inquiry, but it seems like a strange move
as Australia has China as its top export destination. 
So, two questions come to mind – Why did the
Australians jeopardize their Chinese trade relations by asking for
the inquiry? And, what are the Chinese
implying about the origins to COVID-19 when they respond to such inquiries with
a heavy hand (tariffs)? Regardless of
the answers, the situations should bode well for more US agriculture exports
into China.
Product Spotlight – Enlist One™
I’ve
written plenty about Enlist-3™ soybean technology and the parameters around the
label of Enlist One™ and Enlist Duo™ herbicide utilization over the past couple
months. However, one thing I can add to
those comments is the fact that there is just a tad-bit of crop response in
Enlist-3™ soybeans after a 2,4-D choline application. Please do not be concerned if yourself or
your crop consultant witnesses in E-3 soybeans some temporary leaf-drooping
and/or minor leaf necrosis after the 2,4-D choline application. The E-3 soybean plants will quickly recover
with no impact on genetic yield potential.
Last week, we conversed about Pioneer’s history with corn, grain sorghum, and soybeans. But does anyone know how many total seed crops Pioneer brings to market today to help producers be successful across their farm operation?
I count eight or nine, but I could easily be missing one or two:
·
Corn (grain, silage, white, waxy, BMR)
·
Sorghum (grain, forage, and SorghumSudan forage)
·
Winter Wheat
·
Alfalfa
·
Soybeans (including Plenish™)
·
Canola (both spring and winter hybrids)
·
Sunflowers
·
Rice
·
Cotton (PhytoGen® branded from Corteva® –
heritage DOW®) - Pioneer sales agents in the southern US will be selling cotton seed in 2021.
Pioneer®
was in the spring wheat business back in the 1970’s and 80’s, but eventually
decided to get out of the business with a gifting of their genetic stock to
NDSU during the early 1990’s (I can’t find a news article reference). Anyway, several years ago, Pioneer started
anew with a spring wheat breeding program with the target of producing hybrid
spring wheat. If it happens, I expect
that it would take the remainder of this decade for our company to get commercially
available hybrid spring wheat to the market.
If wheat acres decline in the US and Canada as much in the next decade
as they have over the past dozen years, it may make for a difficult case to
keep the hybrid spring wheat Pioneer® breeding program afloat.
The following table
is the estimated final “all wheat” production acres by growing season for the
US from USDA.
Season All Wheat (mil ac)2008 62.7
2009 58.6
2010 53.4
2011 54.2
2012 55.8
2013 56.4
2014 57.1
2015 54.1
2016 49.8
2017 46.2
2018 47.6
2019 45.1
I did receive some additional
insight regarding the Pioneer soybean seed business history. Originally, to start the soybean business,
Pioneer purchased a company named Peterson Soybean Seed Co. For several years, Pioneer kept the name of
Peterson on the paper bag of soybean seed.
It is unclear to me if alfalfa, wheat, or soybeans were technically the
third crop Pioneer brought to market after corn and grain sorghum. I’ll keep digging!
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