“I’m going to bust-off the play and just shoot a
three-pointer!” – Larry “Legend” Bird, NBA hall of famer for the Boston Celtics
On
this particular night (February 26, 1983) in Phoenix, Bird’s Celtics were down
by a single point in the 4th quarter with only one second remaining on
the clock. As the Celtics team was
coming out of their time-out huddle, Bird noticed a slacking Suns defense
obviously trying to prevent an easy two-point bucket. So, in typical Larry Bird fashion he told
everyone – opposing players, the opposing coach, the opposing bench, the
referees, and his teammates – his intentions before the play unfolded! After the ball tickled the net as time expired,
he rubbed it in with a finger point at the Phoenix bench and an “I told you so!”. Larry Bird had every right to brag as he
finished the game with 38 points, 4 rebounds, and 5 assists including the game
winning bucket from 23 feet at the end of 43 min of playing time! https://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/198302260PHO.html
Playing
a slacking defense in agriculture production doesn’t work very well
either. The best farmer managers plan most
of their inputs for the season, reserve some dollars to combat unforeseen
obstacles (including that 4” plus rain in June that will need a replenish of
nitrogen), calculate their cost of production per bushel, have a sound written
marketing strategy, and go to work every day to execute against the plan.
Crop Inputs
I’ll start this week’s newsletter continuing
with the topic of a slacking defense.
I’ve heard (however maybe not true) many growers and consultants across
the country commenting that farmers will be cutting-off crop inputs for the
latter half of the season due to economics – no fungicide, no insecticide, nor
in-season fertility applications. It
seems like a bold move considering that most of the crop input dollars are
already spent with land, machinery, seed, fertilizer, and herbicide already
deducted from the bank account by mid to late June.
I read a good quote from our Corteva® Chief
Economist (Steve Elmore) last week that summarized a response fairly well – “Profit
maximization driven by crop input optimization, not cost minimization, is the
key to success in the current tight margin environment”.
Nothing
will drive up the cost of production on a bushel of corn, soybeans or spring
wheat, like losing a big chunk of yield to a pest outbreak or lack of
fertility. At this time of the year,
“scout and treat” is a great philosophy to make sure we protect our investment
already placed into this season’s crop while also ensuring every dollar of
inputs is warranted and optimized.
If
you have questions on your decision making for further crop inputs, please
reach-out to myself or your local Pioneer sales agent for assistance.
Weather and
Corn Development
We’ve
had warm temperatures to start the week and it’s forecasted to remain warm/hot
for the remainder of the week and through the weekend. Warm nights will drive the GDD equation…
therefore, we will have corn heat unit predictions for the week around 180
GDD’s or about another two plus V-stages of corn development.
Estimating
a corn planting date of May 15th, most of the region sits between 650
to 750 GDD’s for the season to date. It
typically takes an 80-85 RM hybrid about 1000 to 1100 GDD’s to reach the
pollination growth stage, and if the season’s weather trend for heat continues,
we should easily see tassels begin to appear by the 20th to 25th
of July. The grain fill stages typically
take 60 days after pollination, so that would place the corn crop near to at
black layer around September 25th with average temps in
July-Aug-Sept.
At
764 GDD’s for the Grand Forks, ND location to date from May 15th, we should be
seeing V7-V9 corn (some variability will exist due to plant dates, RM of the
corn hybrid, and hybrid early growth/vigor).
I figure about 125 GDD’s for corn to emerge and then use this resource from
the Univ. of Perdue which states the need for about 80-85 GDD per leaf stage
from emergence through 10-Leaf (or V10) crop stage.
https://www.agry.purdue.edu/ext/corn...
/VStagePrediction.html
Last night’s rain event was a
godsend for many growers, but also inundating for a few. The above map reveals NDAWN’s summary of the night. It should place a high percentage of growers
in our region with ample moisture supplies to start the month of July.
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 above average chances of being wetter
than average.
The NOAA group also provides three month outlooks. If we would like to get a bit of insight for the grain fill period of wheat, corn and soybeans, the weather outlook for the July-Aug-Sept time frame, 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.
Well, the June acreage report was released yesterday (Tuesday) and probably the biggest news was the loss of 5.0 mil acres of corn compared to the March Planting Intentions report. This 5.0 mil acre change was a record for corn, and even last season with the vastly delayed planting in areas, the US only lost 3.1 mil corn acres when compared to the March Intentions. We are not sure where those acres went, but speculation in the industry is a greater level of Prevent Plant acreage than anticipated currently.
Probably another slight surprise for me was the loss of 700,000 acres of spring wheat in North Dakota, but only 460,000 acres of spring wheat loss in the US compared to the March Planting Intentions report. For North Dakota, it is another result of our late planting window this season.
Speaking of North Dakota acreage, it’s surprising to see that 2.4 mil acres of corn did get planted this season. Last year, North Dakota had 3.5 mil acres of corn and the March Intentions report had the state estimated at 3.2 mil acres. Many (myself included) were speculating that the state would be lucky to see 1.5-2.0 mil corn acres. With all the comments around returned corn seed from industry representatives, it’s hard to fathom 2.4 mil acres of corn for North Dakota, but I’ve learned to never question the USDA.
Regarding crop condition for corn and soybeans across the nation, things are holding steady while the spring wheat has declined a bit. This week, the corn crop is rated at 73% good to excellent (72% last week), while the soybeans rate at 71% good to excellent (70% last week). Spring wheat has fallen to represent an average crop at best with a 69% crop condition report in the good or excellent category (75% last week; 81% the week before). The spring wheat in eastern ND has experienced many stresses in the month of June with heat and wind during tillering probably being the most detrimental.
USDA’s Crop Progress updates are at this website: https://usda.library.cornell.edu/concern/publications/8336h188j
USDA’s 2020 June Planting Report can be seen here: https://downloads.usda.library.cornell.edu/usda-esmis/files/j098zb09z/vx022244t/8910kf38j/acrg0620.pdf
Corteva®’s TruChoice and Corteva® Cash
Many large farm operations have placed dollars into their
Corteva® TruChoice crop protection account.
If you have Pioneer seed planted on the farm, most likely you have also
earned some Corteva® Cash (2% of your gross Pioneer invoice) to spend on
Corteva® branded crop protection pesticides.
This Corteva Cash has been automatically deposited into your TruChoice
account and is accessible by almost every retail location to purchase some crop
protection chemicals. Corteva Cash must
be used by July 15th. Please
contact myself or your Pioneer sales agent if you have questions.
For this time of the season, some options still remain to
use those funds:
·
Aproach™ and AproachPrima™
– strobularin fungicide for white mold in soybeans, cercospera leaf spot in
sugarbeets, and plant health in corn, soybeans and sunflower. AproachPrima™ is labeled in spring wheat
·
*Durango™ - 5.4 lb/gal DMA glyphosate
formulation
·
*Abundit Edge™ - 5.5 lb/gal K-salt
glyphosate formulation (ideal for tank mixing with Enlist One™)
·
EnlistOne™ and EnlistDuo™ – 2,4-D
choline for post applications in E3 soybeans.
EnlistDuo™ is pre-mixed with glyphosate, EnlistOne™ is straight 2,4-D
choline for tank-mix with glufosinate (Liberty™) or your choice for rate and
product of glyphosate
·
EverpreX™ - (metolachlor) applied as a
tank-mix partner with the glyphosate and/or dicamba/2,4-D choline for residual
activity on pigweeds (including waterhemp), lambsquarter, other small
seeded broadleaf weeds as well as grass weeds – labeled for corn, soybeans, and
sugarbeets.
*Glyphosate products (Durango™ and
Abundit Edge™) are not available to purchase using Corteva Cash, but are
available to purchase with funds a grower has deposited into their TruChoice
account.
COVID-19 Update and Opinion
I got a little flak from a reader last week
for my bit on the NBA and CoronaVirus.
However, I reminded him that it’s just an opinion and even the Romans
seen the end of their famous “Gladiator” history back in the early part of the
first millennial years (264-404 AD). https://www.ancient.eu/gladiator/
Society is always changing and I see a lot of
folks are adapting new individual strategies after this pandemic as they highly
scrutinize the priority of their time and money into efforts that are most critical
to themselves, their family and their businesses. Entertainment will always have value, but
will entertainment garner the types of revenues collected in the past? My bet is on significant changes in the
entertainment world, and I’m excited to see it play-out.
Dicamba vs 2,4-D – soybean
injury
There has been a ton of dicamba and
2,4-D sprayed over the past week in the region’s soybean crop. Are you seeing any drift injury from 2,4-D
onto your dicamba soybeans? Or, dicamba
drift onto your Enlist-3® soybeans?
Maybe a better question is, “do you
know the differences between 2,4-D and dicamba drift injury in soybeans?” Even though both herbicides are in the Group
4 (Growth Regulator) MOA (mode of action) class, the injury symptoms in soybeans
are unique enough for each individual herbicide that the confusion should be
minimal.
Purdue University Extension has a good
brochure outlining the differences: https://ag.purdue.edu/btny/weedscience/Documents/WS-56.pdf
Dicamba Opinion
With the recent drama around dicamba and the
use of those products in RR2Xtend® soybeans this season, it begs the question
of what the future may entail for dicamba.
As a field rep, I don’t have any special insight or “inside information”
on the issue, but I have noticed some interesting developments:
·
It has been known for quite some time that the
federal label was set to expire in December 2020 for ExtendiMax™, Enginia™, and
Fexepan™. Activity by Bayer® and BASF® regarding
the renewal process and/or the attempt to garner renewal has been very quiet
·
There has been limited public statements or
advertising from Bayer® and/or BASF® addressing the pending situation
·
Bayer® has announced it will abandon its construction
efforts on a dicamba plant in Louisiana http://news.agropages.com/News/NewsDetail---35631.htm
·
The insight from around the country is Bayer®
has moved most all of their soybean production this summer (targeted for the 2021
growing season) to XtendFlex® - a three-way herbicide stack of glyphosate,
glufosinate (Liberty™), and dicamba
·
I’ve recently read and written about links of
dicamba to cancer http://news.agropages.com/News/NewsDetail---35137-e.htm
·
Bayer® is currently trying to settle glyphosate
and cancer litigation at a price tag around US$10 bil, making the company very
sensitive to any further litigation exposure
·
Bayer® has plans in the soybean pipeline of
additional herbicide stacks that will provide growers with several options in
the near future. This will help minimize
the long-term risk around losing the use of dicamba http://news.agropages.com/News/NewsDetail---34165.htm
·
The federal government will have increased
pressure to institute new strategies and criteria to approve pesticides while
keeping human and environment risk low.
This may or may not include the EPA and garners the question of – will the
EPA and/or feds approve any controversial chemicals while a new review system
is being developed? http://news.agropages.com/News/NewsDetail---35698.htm
Don’t get me wrong, I hope dicamba is
available in 2021 for use in soybeans in our region and across the US, but it
looks like a steep (not impossible) hill to climb at this point. Dicamba has proven itself as a valuable tool with
great performance and it mixes very easily in the spray tank for application. Also, as we evaluate the Group 00 and Group 0
soybean maturity zones in our region, most of our best varieties today do contain
RR2Xtend technology. Lastly, Pioneer has
a significant portion of our seed production in the area dedicated to varieties
with dicamba technology and thus the industry may have concerns meeting demand if
growers insist on having stacked herbicide technologies in their soybean seed
for 2021.
If dicamba is unavailable due to regulatory
issues in soybeans next year, farmers will have primarily the following stacked
herbicide technology options available for soybean planting next season:
-
Enlist-3® soybeans with 2,4-D choline,
glyphosate and glufosinate (Liberty™) post-emerge herbicide technology options
-
XtendFlex® soybeans with only glyphosate and
glufosinate (Liberty™) post-emerge technology options (dicamba technology
present, but unavailable to utilize)
-
Alite27® soybeans (otherwise known as “BalanceBeans”)
from BASF® with isoxaflutole (BalancePro™) technology as a
pre-emerge herbicide and then glyphosate and glufosinate (Liberty™)
technologies available post-emerge. At
this time, only a few select US counties have BalancePro™ as a pre-emerge
product approved for use in Alite27® soybean varieties. https://www.agriculture.com/news/crops/basf-s-alite-27-soybean/...
The
US-China Trade War still looms large over our commodity prices, but things may
be looking favorable for later on in the year.
Farm Policy News out of the University of Illinois had a nice update on
the developing situation and stated that China has re-committed to fulfil their
obligations by the end of the 2020 year.
https://farmpolicynews.illinois.edu/2020/06/china-to-accelerate-us...
However,
the politics are still being played as a separate report from Reuters has China
looking for guarantees of COVID-free commodity cargoes from the US. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-china-grains...
The
media will always portray two sides to every story so you can eventually find
something that agrees to your thinking.
As for myself and my reading between the lines, I think the US is in a
position of strength and we will see China fold under the pressure to
eventually comply with their trade commitments.
It’s just hard to say when and what those volumes may be – but probably
a back and forth dance through the US Presidential election season.
Why
do I think the US is in a strong position?
Many countries do not like the fact that China has become the most significant
supplier in the world but is also subject to many health out-breaks. The health outbreaks disrupt the supply
chains and leave countries (and their people) in a state of vulnerability. Therefore, many countries are incentivizing
companies to have more diversity in their production. Companies are moving out of China or at least
diversifying to other countries as well to meet the challenging needs of the
world’s population. The risk of a
business to have a majority of their eggs in the China basket is too high currently
and thus China is and will be losing a lot of their power and influence around
the world.
The
current US administration has addressed on-farm income with numerous programs
this spring and we may see more stimulus yet. Unfortunately, we may have to
survive on these government program dollars as our short-term ag-commodity
prices will hinge on export volume and it may take additional time and effort
for China to deliver.
Lastly
(and it’s probably minor), it’s good to keep an eye on the value of the
dollar. The dollar is down to about 97.5,
and if it continues to weaken, we should see a natural increase in the value of
commodities in correlation.
Product Spotlight – Granular Insights and JD
Connectivity Program
Do
you find yourself chasing data during harvest or at the end of harvest, by
trying to locate a clean USB thumb drive, followed by hopping in and out of
machinery to get your data summarized?
Well,
we’ve got a solution… Corteva® has a program available for Pioneer customers to
upgrade their machinery equipment in the field with JDLink Connect subscriptions
(or an extension of a current subscription) along with a 4G MTG to make the
data flow wirelessly into the John Deere Operations Center.
Corteva®
does require the set-up of a Granular Insights account (many of you already
have one), so your farm can benefit from additional services like satellite
imagery, yield comparisons by hybrid or variety across the farm, and other
tools.
Vouchers
are available and must be redeemed by Aug. 31st. Please see this website for more details and
to sign-up: https://granular.ag/voucher/?utm_source=digitalhorizon&utm_content=deeresummerconnectivity
Please contact myself or your
Pioneer Sales Agency for further details.
It’s always gut-wrenching to see a beautiful field of
soybeans in late July through mid-August start to subcomb to white mold
infestation. Some soybean varieties can
handle white mold better than others, but if the infestation is severe enough,
even the most tolerant varieties are affected.
Currently with the recent big rains, we should be thinking
about the upcoming white mold season (it has potential to be severe) and white
mold management in our soybean and dry edible bean crops. Aproach™ is a solid option to implement to
diversify the attack where primarily Topsin-M™ and Endura™ have been utilized
in the past. Aproach fungicide is one of
the best translocative strobilurin fungicides on the market today and highly
effective under labeled rates and timing.
The below picture demonstrates how well three droplets of
fungicide applied on the soybean trifoliate leaf can translocate after 1, 3,
and 7 days. The three strobilurin
fungicides compared are Aproach, Quadris, and Headline. Application
timing is always difficult to get perfect over large acreage, and thus a translocative
ability to help cure a few early infections is a prefered component of a worthy
fungicide.
Aproach™ will need two applications (10-14 days apart) at a
9.0 oz/ac rate to garner full labeled control of white mold and is typically
targeted for the R1 (beginning bloom) and R3 (beginning pod) growth stages of
soybean crop development. If you are
applying soybean herbicide at the R1-R2 growth stage, then it’s a perfect time
to add some fungicide in our soybean fields, and especially to our soybean
fields with a strong history of white mold infestation.
For more insight on white mold management in soybeans and
control options click here: https://www.pioneer.com/home/site/us/agronomy/integrated-mgmt-white-mold-soybeans/.
To view the Aproach™ label: https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/agrian-cg-fs1-production/pdfs/DuPont_Aproach1h_Fungicide_Label.pdf .
Weed Resistance
The picture below
reveals a glyphosate plus dicamba kochia survivor. This particular plant survived a spring
pre-plant burn-down application containing both herbicides, and would be
classified as multi-resistant (resistant to two or more herbicide mode of
actions with two or more resistant mechanisms).
Even though this particular picture is not from an application in
soybean with RR2Xtend® technology, it begs the question… why are we seeing some
of today’s weeds overcome new herbicide technologies so quickly?
Last week, we
discussed how a genetic mutation within a weed species can lead to resistance
development. Here is a great research
article highlighting a US kochia population with a genetic mutation resistance
to dicamba, and then that same mutation also confirming resistance to other
Group 4 herbicides (cross-resistance): https://www.pnas.org/content/115/13/E2911#xref-ref-4-1
Anyway, this week I
would like to discuss how increased metabolism or detoxification can also be a
mechanism for weeds to implement to survive a herbicide application.
To set the stage for
our detoxification discussion, we should re-emphasize the fact that a
population of some of the toughest to control weed species today are probably
just as genetically diverse as say a subset of the human population in a very densely
populated area (imagine New York City).
Even though all residents of a large city are homo sapiens, they will
still have vast differences within their genetic make-up – skin color, hair
color, intelligence, ability to see or hear, body fat content, etc.
So, how does this
relate to detoxification? Basically, the
herbicide application is an applied dose of chemical that a targeted weed will
succumb to… a dose of killing poison in other words. Do you remember those days as a young adult
when the party was going extremely well and most folks consumed a ton more
alcohol than average? Have you ever
wondered why or how some of those folks functioned the next day? Was there a difference in the “hang-over
level” within the group? Yes! It’s basically their genetic potential to
metabolize or detoxify the consumed poison.
And just like skin color, hair color, intelligence, etc., the human
population will have differences in their ability to metabolize or detoxify
alcohol (consider Native American vs Norwegian).
Only the very rare
individual weeds within a population with immense ability to detoxify specific
herbicide molecules may survive, and it will most likely take several
applications to find these very rare individuals. In our neck of the woods, one common example
of metabolic resistance would be within the wild oat populations and resistance
to Group 1 (ACCase) and/or Group 2 (ALS inhibitors).
Typically, it is the
metabolic resistance mechanism that will fluctuate survivor numbers more
broadly with sensitivity around herbicide use rate. A stronger dose will lead to stronger kill
rates. But often, higher rates are only
implemented after resistance has appeared and the rate of detoxification
greatly selected for. At this point typically,
economic control with a particular single herbicide becomes cost prohibitive
and a move to other control measures sought.
In many cropping areas around the world, there are
herbicide resistance issues that have been broadly fought over the past 20 to 30
years or longer. Many farm producers
have come to realize that herbicides and herbicide technologies are not a sustainable
long-term solution by themselves for sound weed management plans. A day will come when even the North American
farmer will be forced to implement some non-herbicide tactics to help keep weed
population numbers manageable and herbicides viable.
Random
Agricultural Facts – US Corn Production
“Farmers
averaged three hours of work per bushel of corn in 1929, but advances in
equipment, pesticides, fertilizers, and especially hybridization had shortened
that time to just six minutes by the end of the 1960’s.” – USDA stats.
I read this
quote the other week in an online news print article from the 1990’s so I don’t
have a reference, but I thought it was very interesting how the science from a
genetics, chemical and mechanical perspective have revolutionized ag over the
past 50 to 80 years.
It’s way
more important and valuable to know your cost of production on a bushel of corn
but, what would you estimate this figure (minutes of labor/bu of corn) for your
farm? My rough math says it’s probably under
30 secs for most operations, and probably even under 15 seconds/bu for some of
our most efficient large operators (labor for grain handling would the largest
variable). It would be interesting to
visit with David Hula and calculate how much time he has into some of his NCGA
acres!
Speaking of
David Hula, here is an interesting stat from his NCGA production record – 0.663
lbs of corn grain per ear (or plant).
The typical average would be closer to 0.35 lbs of grain/ear (or plant)
– meaning that Hula gets almost twice as much grain per plant on his contest
corn than average. Plus, he has more
plants per acre. Both factors are key
components in his 616 bu/ac world record corn yield with Pioneer hybrid
P1197YHR!
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