July 27, 2020 Edition

If this is actually a movie, I’d be interested in viewing it.  But my guess is that the message relates to the current state of affairs with all the happenings around COVID-19, the main-stream media, and the political environment upon us.  If you are like myself and many other folks I converse with, you may have found more serenity and wisdom by giving your attention elsewhere.  Maybe a good book or two, an increase in family time, or some time dedicated to improving personal health/wellbeing has infiltrated more into your daily routine.

Now that most all of the crop inputs have been applied to the corn, soybeans and spring wheat, we may find ourselves looking for wisdom while thinking of adjustments and improvements for next year.  Improving farm efficiencies in the field is one thing, but strong farm businesses also look for ways to bolster their operation behind the scenes… better benefit packages for their labor, analysis improvement of their farm financials, and/or expanding their off-farm investments to create broader diversity and risk.  Whatever the goal, there are multiple ways to achieve it.

If you are looking to improve some aspect of your operation, Pioneer can help.  We have several key resources within the industry that can either provide the service directly, or help you learn more broadly or specifically about a segment of the business.  Please reach-out to me directly or contact your local Pioneer sales agency for more insight.

Weather and Corn Development

We continue to have great conditions for the warm season crops to flourish.  We’ll have moderate temperatures for the week with small chances of precipitation.  The average temperatures will bring about 130-135 GDD’s for the week ahead.

The GDD accumulation map for our region through the 26^th of July has our corn crop in a very favorable position as we finish-up pollination in most fields.  With most locations around 100 to 200 GDD’s above normal (1981-2010 for a 30-year average is normal for NDAWN), we are seeing this season’s corn crop about a solid week ahead of average in general with regards to maturity.

Last week may have not seemed wet overall, but when looking across the entire seven days, we did pick-up significant rainfall and along with the high humidity, we didn’t dry-out very much.  The corn is still consuming about 1/4 to 3/10^th of an inch of water per day depending on heat, humidity and sunshine.  Hopefully, we can dry-out some before the autumn precipitation events start.

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/index.php

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 to slightly above average chances of being wetter than normal.

The NOAA group also provides three month outlooks.  If we would like to get a bit of insight for the autumn harvest season of Sept-Oct-Nov time frame, it can be seen here: https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/predictions/long_range/seasonal.php?lead=2

This timeframe forecast has been updated to reveal above average chances of higher temperatures, but only equal chances of either above or below average precipitation.

US Crop Progress

The USDA estimates corn silking is occurring across 82% of the US acreage, and at 56% for North Dakota.  The prior 5-year average for corn silking across the US is 75%, making the corn crop slightly ahead of schedule across the nation.  The corn crop condition report states that 72% of acreage in the good to excellent category (up a tad from last week’s 69%), and surprisingly the North Dakota crop rates at the same level of the US crop – 72% in the good to excellent category (also up three points).

For soybeans, USDA predicts that 76% of the acres are blooming, while 72% rate in the good to excellent category for crop condition.  North Dakota’s soybeans would rate at 63% good to excellent and 71% are at least in the bloom stage.

Spring wheat has a 70% good to excellent rating across the US for crop condition with N.Dakota’s spring wheat condition rated below the national average at 64% good to excellent.

https://downloads.usda.library.cornell.edu/usda-esmis/files/8336h188j/dr26zk433/tq57pc994/prog3120.pdf

Overall, individual reports across the country reveal a good to excellent crop coming in many/most locations.  The US Drought Monitor for late July only has some minor acreage of “Moderate Drought” throughout the major grain producing regions.

What’s Happening in my Corn and Soybean Crops?

As we enter the reproductive stages of the corn and soybean crop, I thought I would share a couple resources for describing these crop stages and some of the important characteristics.

For corn, I like the University of Purdue’s “Grain Fill Stages in Corn” guide.  https://www.agry.purdue.edu/ext/corn/news/timeless/grainfill.html

Regardless of corn relative maturity, it’ll take the typical corn hybrid about 60 days from the start of silking (R1) to physiological maturity (R6) or black layer.  If we have average heat units moving forward, we should see fully mature corn of 30-35% moisture around September 20^th to 25^th – a favorable and enjoyable spot to be.

For soybeans, there are many resources primarily highlighting the same insight on the reproductive stages, so I’ll just provide the following Pioneer.com site:  https://www.pioneer.com/us/agronomy/staging-soybean-growth.html

Soybeans are in a unique time currently as they are still putting on vegetative growth, flowering and starting pod formation.  Moisture and temperature conditions look ideal, and I look for the soybean crop to continue to improve significantly over the next couple weeks.

Product Spotlight – Redekop®

Redekop® has an interesting development in the area of controlling weeds at harvest time.  Unfortunately, weed resistance to herbicides continues to plague many farms and we realize that there are not many viable weed control options at this stage of the season and through the end of the year.  Redekop®’s thought process revolves around the fact that many of our resistant weeds will have the next generation of seeds passing through a combine at the end of the season.  If we can capture or destroy these weed seeds in the harvesting process, it can go a long way to reducing weed seedbank numbers as well as decrease our reliance exclusively to herbicides to impact future weed numbers.

Redekop® has a couple options available for managing weed seed numbers.  Their best option for our region would to pulverize or crush the weed seed.  Redekop®’s team has designed and built a device that mounts under the sieve on the combine to take the chaff fraction and basically grind it to dust before distributing it back to the field.  This method eliminates any further seasonal management, while also maximizing efficiency and flexibility of future field operations.

If your operation is battling resistant weed populations today (like wild oats, kochia, common ragweed, and/or waterhemp), or you would be interested in staying ahead of the evolving weed pests, I would encourage you to view Redekop®’s website and see how their products could impact your farm business and prolong the viability of the herbicide resource.

https://redekopmfg.com/products/harvest-weed-seed-control/

https://www.fwi.co.uk/machinery/harvest-equipment/combines/agri...

 

GMO Approval Changes from USDA

Back in May, the USDA approved the “SECURE Rule” to minimize regulations around Genetically Engineered (GE) technology and advances in the biotech realm.  Supporters of USDA’s actions comment on the fact that these regulations have not been significantly updated since the science first entered the industry in the 1990’s.  Opponents to the SECURE Rule, say that biotechnology has fueled “super weeds” with herbicide resistance to significant multiple modes of action.

My response to those opponents would be the weeds would have continued to evolve herbicide resistance despite glyphosate bio-tech.  Maybe the spread of herbicide resistance would have slowed, but by not approving GE crops back in the 1990’s, our weed resistance scenario would not have been solved.  If we evaluate some of the countries that were slow to adopt GE technology (i.e. Australia), we quickly realize they still have a growing number of weed populations and species with resistance to glyphosate as well as other herbicides.

Also, now that we are at this point in history, novel new herbicide stacked GE crops will help arm farm managers with broader tools to stay ahead of the threat.  With the painfully expensive, tedious, and slow process of bringing new herbicide mode of actions to the market, we’ll need GE herbicide stacked traits to maintain a handle on our resistant weeds.

Lastly, the SECURE Rule will help aid technology like CRISPR a chance to improve nutritional quality of food, as well as other key crop characteristics (i.e. drought tolerance, disease tolerance, etc).  So at the end of the day, the ruling should provide more consistent food security with everyone benefiting – the general public as food consumers, farm managers, and the ag-industry businesses investing in GE technology.

http://news.agropages.com/News/NewsDetail---35362-e.htm

https://www.usda.gov/media/press-releases/2020/05/14/usda-secure-rule-paves-way-agricultural-innovation

https://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/primer/genomicresearch/genomeediting

Brazil with record Ag Exports

With everyone keeping a close eye on the US-China trade war, Brazil placed together a record June 2020 ag export business with sales of US$10.2 bil.  The growth over June ‘19 was 24.5%.

With the large ‘20 Brazilian soybean crop of 122 MMT (or 4.47 bil bushels), it comes as no surprise that over 50% (actually 53.4% or US$5.42 bil) of the Brazilian June ag-export sales were soybeans.  What was the destination of all those soybeans?  Well, it should come as no surprise the FarmDoc article states that about 70% of them went to China.  Even with the large ‘20 crop of soybeans, Brazil continues to import a few soybeans from their neighbors to help satisfy demand.

It’s good to see soybean demand remain high.  Hopefully, we can continue to see some strengthening US foreign relations and a weaker US dollar that will continue to help US soybeans compete on the world stage.  For comparison, the May ’20 US soybean export value was US$702 mil.  Using the above figures, the May 2020 US soybean export value was only 13% of the June 2020 Brazil soybean export value.  Disappointing, but unfortunately that’s what the numbers reveal.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/741384/soybean-production-vol...

https://farmpolicynews.illinois.edu/2020/07/brazilian-agribusiness...

https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/foreign-agricultural-trade...

Brazil Facing Scrutiny over Illegal Deforestation

An interesting report came out of Science magazine about Brazil and their agriculture production from illegally deforested lands.  You wouldn’t think that there would be much ramification for illegally deforesting land, but the EU is raising criticism as they have a pending trade agreement with Mercusor (the South American trading bloc of Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay).

The trade agreement between the two bloc’s do contain environmental protections and the EU is threatening not to ratify the pending agreement due to Brazil’s lack of commitment to an environmental agenda.

The recently completed study estimates that only 2% of the rural Brazilian farms accounted for 60% of the detected illegal deforestation.  There is no mention on acreage that is influenced, however the illegal deforestation accounted for 17% of meat and 20% of the soybeans that were exported to the EU.  If these are the estimated volumes of export to the EU, I wonder how much of Brazil’s soybeans exported to China came from illegally deforested lands?  Maybe this will funnel more EU soybean purchases from the US.

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/369/6501/246

https://farmpolicynews.illinois.edu/2020/07/science-magazine-study...

Random Agricultural Facts – US and Canada 2020 Plantings

We’ve all heard the term “corn is king” which comes from maize dominating US farm acre production for decades.  But, what is the “king” of crops in our neighboring country to the north?

If you count spring wheat, winter wheat and durum wheat together as “all-wheat”, that total acreage in Canada would add-up to 25.0 mil acres.  Spring wheat dominates the “all-wheat” category with 17.9 mil acres, with durum a distant second at 5.7 mil acres.  If we brake-up the wheat category, canola would be king at 20.8 mil acres.  After “all-wheat”, canola, and barley, soybeans would come in at a distant fourth at 5.1 mil acres.  If you are wondering about Canadian corn acreage, it would arrive in 8^th place (after field peas, lentils, and oats) at 3.6 mil acres.  All numbers are based on 2020 Canadian June preliminary estimates for planting of principle field crops.

It’s interesting to note that Canada has only 78.5 mil acres of principle crops… heck, over the last several years, the US often plants more total soybean acres than that!

https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/.../t001c-eng.htm  

For the USA in 2020, corn is king at 92.0 mil acres, soybeans follow at 83.8 mil acres, and all-wheat (winter, spring and durum) at 44.25 mil acres would round out the top three crops in terms of acres planted across the US.  But, are there any guesses to the fourth most crop planted in the US?

For crops, cotton probably would qualify as 4^th at 12.1 mil acres forecasted for 2020 planting.  Alfalfa as hay would be in the discussion as well at 16.4 mil acres.  Other hay – which could include a variety of forage crops – would account for 36.0 mil acres, making all hay at a total acreage of 52.4 mil acres (more than all-wheat).

After hops (fifth at 7.5 mil acres) and sorghum (sixth at 5.6 mil acres), the remaining crops barely make-up 14 mil acres of US plantings in 2020.  For the beer lover, it’s interesting to note that hops acreage is about 2.7 times the size of the barley acres (7.5 mil vs 2.8 mil).

Principle crop acreage in the US accounts for 311.9 mil acres in 2020; almost four times the Canadian principle crop acreage.

For a source on these US ag stats, or to review the June 2020 USDA plantings report, click on this link: https://downloads.usda.library.cornell.edu/usda-esmis/files/j098zb09z/vx022244t/8910kf38j/acrg0620.pdf

July 20, 2020 edition

“Let us not seek the Republican answer or the Democratic answer, but the right answer.  Let us not seek to fix the blame for the past.  Let us accept our own responsibility for the future” – John F. Kennedy; 35^th US President

If you read this quote to most people and tell them that it came from a prior President, most would probably assume Reagan or Eisenhower or maybe even a stretch to GW Bush.  Whatever the guess, it would most likely be a Republican.  However, it’s very interesting to note that the President attributed to this quote was a member of the Democratic party.  It makes you wonder how long our political system has been sabotaged with corruption, dishonesty, and a media unwilling to provide truthful investigative research for the benefit of the American public.

Answers in farming that consistently drive profitability are not easy to formulate and there is no right or wrong method to obtain the goal.  Some farms have a keen sense of the markets, some dive head first into the agronomy, and others enjoy the mechanical challenge around farm machinery.  Today’s farm producers consistently enjoy several aspects of the business and are highly aware of the areas that need improvement.

If you are looking to improve some aspect of your operation, Pioneer can help.  We have several resources within the industry that can either provide the service directly, or help you learn about a topic.  Please reach-out to me directly or contact your local Pioneer sales agency for more insight.

Weather and Corn Development

We’ve had great conditions for the warm season crops to flourish over the past several weeks assuming the excess rainfall was able to adequately drain-off the fields.  We’ll have very warm temperatures return at the end of this week and through the weekend.  I’ll predict another 155-160 GDD’s for the week ahead.

A few folks have made the reference of 2020 being similar to 2016 with all the wet weather we have been experiencing.  However, 2016 was a bit cooler for temperatures as many locations would be 50-150 GDD’s fewer in 2016 at this time compared to the current year.  Probably the best analogy would be 2012 or 2018 temperatures with 2016 rainfall.  However, there is so much drown-out crop in many locations, it’ll be very tough to match 2016 yields this particular autumn.

The rainfall map for our region in the first three weeks of July looks manageable, but when looking back to June, we understand that many areas from east central North Dakota and eastward have endured too much water.

Most of the corn crop is starting to reveal tassels (VT) over the past several days.  The first reproductive stage is actually silking (R1), and it should last 10-12 days under current conditions.  A fully healthy corn crop at a plant population around 32k plants/ac in the pollination stage will consume 1/4 to 1/3 of an inch of water per day depending on heat, humidity and sunshine, so hopefully we’ll dry-up a tad over the next couple weeks.

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 to slightly above average chances of being wetter than normal.

The NOAA group also provides three month outlooks.  If we would like to get a bit of insight for the autumn harvest season of Sept-Oct-Nov time frame, it can be seen here: https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/.../long_range/seasonal.php?lead=1

This timeframe forecast reveals equal chances for both above and below average precipitation, but for temperatures, there is a greater chance that we should experience warmer than average conditions. 

US Crop Progress

The USDA estimates corn silking is occurring across 59% of the US acreage, but only at 18% for North Dakota.  The corn crop condition is 69% of acreage in the good to excellent category (same as last week), and surprisingly the North Dakota crop rates at the same level of the US crop – 69% in the good to excellent category.

For soybeans, USDA predicts that 64% of the acres are blooming, while 69% rate in the good to excellent category.  North Dakota’s soybeans would rate at 68% good to excellent and 57% are at in the bloom stage.

Spring wheat has a 68% good to excellent rating across the US with N.Dakota’s spring wheat condition rated below the national average at 62% good to excellent.

https://downloads.usda.library.cornell.edu/usda-esmis/files/8336h188j/sf268t43v/1831d650j/prog3020.pdf

Bayer’s Glyphosate Settlement

In June, Bayer agreed to settle its approximately 100,000 lawsuits related to glyphosate and cancer.  The settlement cost was US$10.9 bil.  Of that total cost, $US1.25 bil is designated to go towards addressing potential future litigation on the matter.  Since 2018, Bayer has lost three consecutive lawsuits in front of US juries who ruled that glyphosate does cause cancer after listening to scientific testimony from both plaintiffs and defendants.

There are still some questions around the $1.25 bil for future claims.  Bayer’s® lawyers will address all concerns related to these questions in a late July hearing.

http://news.agropages.com/News/NewsDetail---35871.htm

Bayer® to Bring Multi-Herbicide Stacked Corn Hybrids

Speaking of Bayer®, pending regulatory approval, they have announced plans for a five-way herbicide stacked corn trait package.  The designated hybrid herbicide tolerances will be to glyphosate, glufosinate (Liberty™), dicamba, 2,4-D, and quizalofop (Assure™ II).  The AgNews article doesn’t provide a timeline for potential release or when a regulatory decision is forecasted.

http://news.agropages.com/News/NewsDetail---35853.htm

However, the article does mention that Bayer has closed their litigation trial in regard to a settlement around dicamba drift in soybeans of US$400 Mil.

Many university weed scientists are questioning the future of weed control as the writing on the wall says that weed resistance is continuing to expand despite additional tools from ag-industry.  Will crop tolerances to herbicides that were developed decades ago be the solution to our expanding weed management challenges?  I would think not, but our willingness at the farm level to invest into non-herbicide weed control strategies is a low priority currently.

I would agree that the ag-industry has placed most farm managers on a herbicide carousel and we will need continued technology advances to stay ahead of a consistently evolving weed spectrum.  For a non-herbicide weed control option, Redekop® has an interesting development in the area of controlling weed seeds at harvest time.  https://redekopmfg.com/products/harvest-weed-seed-control/

Corn Pollination Facts

It’s interesting to note that the spelling of the word “pollen” changes when you expand it to “pollination”.  Anyway, here are some common facts about the most important phase of corn growth -- pollination:

·         Pollination normally takes place during a 10-12-day period

·         Significant drought stress delays silk emergence since silks are over 90% water as well as stimulates an earlier than normal pollen shed.  This results in a shorter pollination “nick” where receptive silks and viable pollen are both present

·         Each tassel can produce between 2 and 5 million pollen grains. Considering there are 500 to 1,000 potential kernels on each ear, not having enough pollen in the field is very rare

·         Anthers typically shed pollen in the early to mid-morning time frame as anthers dry in the heat and sunlight

·         Pollen grains are viable for only a few minutes after they are shed until they desiccate

·         Extreme heat stress (over 95℉) can reduce pollen production and viability – very rare for our region to have sterile pollen due to heat

·         Each silk that emerges from an ear shoot connects to a single ovule, or potential kernel

·         A silk must receive pollen and an ovule successfully pollinated to develop into a kernel

·         Silk emergence (and therefore pollination) begins from the base of the ear to the tip of the ear

·         Silks will continue to elongate for up to 10 days after emergence or until they are pollinated. Silks can grow over 1.5” inches per day

·         After the ovule has been pollinated, the silk will detach from the ovule.  A common method to check pollination success is to carefully peel back the husks and see how many silks naturally fall off the cob.  Seeing a couple silks hang-on is normal, but if the number is closer to a dozen or more, then you should begin to ask some questions

·         Silk receptivity decreases over time following initial silk emergence due to the senescence of silk tissue

·         The greatest stress susceptible period extends from one week prior to silking to approximately two weeks after silking

·         Yield losses during this period result from reduction in kernel number and are therefore irreversible.

What’s Happening in my Corn and Soybean Crops?

As we enter the reproductive stages of the corn and soybean crop, I thought I would share a couple resources for describing these crop stages and some of the important characteristics.

For corn, I like the University of Purdue’s “Grain Fill Stages in Corn” guide.  https://www.agry.purdue.edu/ext/corn/news/timeless/grainfill.html

Regardless of corn relative maturity, it’ll take the typical corn hybrid about 60 days from the start of silking (R1) to physiological maturity (R6) or black layer.  So, if we are starting to silk today, and we have average heat units moving forward, we should see fully mature corn of 30-35% moisture around September 20^th – a great spot for our region to be regarding the corn crop.

For soybeans, there are many resources primarily highlighting the same insight on the reproductive stages, so I’ll just provide the following Pioneer.com site:  https://www.pioneer.com/us/agronomy/staging-soybean-growth.html

Soybeans are in a unique time currently as they are still putting on vegetative growth, flowering and starting pod formation.  Moisture and temperature conditions look ideal, and I look for the soybean crop to improve significantly over the next couple weeks in our region.

Product Spotlight – WideARmatch™

The EPA has just granted approval to Corteva® for registration of the herbicide WideARmatch™.  This pre-mix for broadleaf control in wheat will contain clopyralid (Stinger™) and fluroxypyr (Starane™) as seen in the traditional WideMatch™, and add the new component of Arylex™ active (Elevore™).

The Arylex™ active will be a great component to greatly enhance the efficacy on maristail, kochia, common ragweed and common lambsquarter as well as other broadleaf weeds.  The concentration of fluroxypyr will also increase in WideARmatch™ when compared to the traditional WideMatch™.  

All these factors should help delay (not solve) any herbicide resistance development.  The initial target crop is small grains – spring wheat, winter wheat, barley, durum, and triticale.

https://www.corteva.us/products-and-solutions/crop-protection/widearmatch.html

China and their Phase I Import goals

All eyes are still on China in the ag-industry as the US tries to move out from under a large farm commodity supply.  FarmDoc out of the University of Illinois had a nice article on the topic to start the month of July.  Trade is increasing from month to month into China from the US, but is below pace for meeting the volumes of the Phase I agreement.

China continues to suspend some ag imports claiming CoronaVirus infection despite the lack of scientific data showing a link of virus infections to food.  Supposedly, Chinese ports are currently operating normally so one would think trade volumes will pick-up towards the end of the calendar year.

https://farmpolicynews.illinois.edu/2020/07/china-imports...

Weed Resistance

Over the last two newsletter editions, we discussed how a genetic mutation and enhanced detoxification within a weed species can lead to weed resistance development.  I’ll end the three-part series with a third identified resistance mechanism – gene amplification.

It has been noted in the past two newsletters that increased genetic diversity comes from high weed seed bank numbers with examples of the human population in New York City.  And, with increased genetic diversity, the probability of finding individuals that can survive a killing herbicide application increase significantly. 

One fairly typical method in which a herbicide kills a plant is by inhibiting the normal function a specific enzyme critical for the day to day success of the plant.  For example, most all plants have an EPSPS enzyme which is critical for producing phosphate substrates for the plant to live.  When a plant with the normal number of EPSPS enzymes is sprayed with glyphosate herbicide, the glyphosate would inhibit or block the EPSPS enzyme from properly functioning.  The result of this inhibition is the inability of the plant to produce the substrate, and ultimately the plant is starved of the critical component and therefore perishes. 

In the following illustration, the normal number of EPSPS gene copies (yellow dots on chromosomes) is highlighted in the top drawing (A) and would denote a susceptible glyphosate plant.  This plant will produce EPSPS in leaf chloroplasts (designated by the yellow circles in the highlighted oval) that is targeted and overwhelmed by the normal usage rate of glyphosate (red diamonds), and therefore the plant is unable to produce phosphate substrate resulting in death.  In a resistant individual (B) with amplified EPSPS gene copies present on multiple chromosomes, there is increased EPSPS, and the normal glyphosate rate cannot inhibit the vast number of available EPSPS enzymes.

https://www.pnas.org/content/107/3/955

Gene amplification has been identified as the weed resistance mechanism for palmer amaranth in conjunction with glyphosate resistance.  Some populations of p.amaranth have such elevated or “amplified” levels of EPSPS that even doses as high as 100x are not effective!

There are literally hundreds of documented cases of weed resistance around the world.  Gene amplification, gene mutation and increased detoxification are just some of today’s known mechanisms that an individual weed may use to overcome a killing dose of herbicide.  I’m sure many other weed mechanisms will be found over time.

http://www.weedscience.org/home.aspx

If you suspect a patch of weeds are resistant: 

·         Close inspection of weed escapes 7-10 days after a herbicide application will reveal survivors mixed among controlled (dead) individual weed plants.  In some cases, there may be weed plants with various stages of injury within the survivor population

• Implement a second (or third) application with a different herbicide mode of action product for desired control
• If the resistant weed patches remain, and are manageable in size, use mechanical means (tillage, mowing, hand pulling) to remove weeds before they set seed
• If the resistant weed patch(s) does set seed, consider collecting some of the weed seed to test and confirm resistance (especially, if there is some uncertainty around the quality of spray application)
• Adjust future herbicide and cropping practices so that weeds can be sprayed with multiple modes of action that are effective on the particular weed type and other at-risk weed species
• Consider implementing some non-herbicide IWM strategies to prolong the effectiveness of the herbicide resource. 

Random Agricultural Facts – US Canola and Sunflowers

Which is greater for 2020 acre production --  North Dakota acres of canola, or US acres of sunflower? 

Actually, it’s very close with the difference of only 6,500 acres!  The North Dakota canola acreage would be a slight winner.

According to the June ’20 USDA plantings report, the canola acreage this year came in at 1.868 mil US acres with North Dakota easily the top canola producing state at 1.550 mil acres or 83% of the US total.  Meanwhile, US Sunflower productions is at 1.5435 mil acres. 

Here in North Dakota, my math says that canola is the 4^th largest crop in our state for 2019… well behind spring wheat (6.0 mil ac), soybeans (6.0 mil acres) and corn (2.4 mil ac).

In sunflower, 89% of the US 2020 crop are oils while only 170.5k acres are non-oil (confections for human consumption which are sold as “in the shell” or dehulled for various uses – sunflower flour, salad and main dish toppings, etc.). 

North Dakota is forecasted to have 620k acres of sunflower this season which will make it the largest producing sunflower state in the nation.  South Dakota is a very close second at 615k acres.  Any guesses for the state with the third most sunflower acres?  Kansas comes in a distant third place with 70k acres.

To review the June 2020 USDA plantings report, click on this link:

https://downloads.usda.library.cornell.edu/usda-esmis/files/j098zb09z/vx022244t/8910kf38j/acrg0620.pdf

In Canada, the acreage difference between canola and sunflower is vast!  The 2020 June Estimated Preliminary Plantings from Statistics Canada states 20.8 mil ac canola vs only 70k acres of sunflower.  The state of Kansas raises just as many acres of sunflower as the entire country of Canada!

https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/.../t001c-eng.htm