“Is that all you got, George?
You can’t be champion with those sissy punches!” – Muhammad Ali during
the fight
Despite your thoughts on Muhammad Ali’s
personal life, most all would agree that he was one heck of a boxer, athlete,
and promoter of his sport. Plus, he loved
to get under the skin and into the mind of his opponent, and with that came
some classic talking! Like all great
champions, Mr. Ali could back it up to a high level.
On this particular night in October of
1974, forever known as the “Rumble in the Jungle”, George Foreman was the clear
favorite (4-1 odds) as he was the current world heavyweight champion and had
been since Jan. ’73. Foreman was seven
years younger than Ali (25 vs 32), and George had easily beaten both Ken
Norton, Sr. and Joe Frazier with knockouts inside of two rounds – the only two
losses in Ali’s career up to that point had been 15 round decisions to both
fighters. Even Howard Cosell, the famous
ABC television sportscaster, didn’t give his favorite boxer of the time (Ali)
much of a chance against the punishing bruiser of “Big George” Foreman. Before the fight, Ali voiced his usual poetic
confidence in his ability to win, and warned his detractors to not bet against
him. Ali reminded everyone of his
underdog wins against Sonny Liston (twice) and Floyd Patterson – two former
heavyweight champions from the 1960’s that Ali beat fairly decisively. Muhammad Ali self-predicted a win over
Foreman with a knockout by the sixth round.
During the fight, Ali continued to
challenge Foreman with his legendary verbal lashes and the “rope-a-dope”
strategy. Foreman was so perturbed by
all of Ali’s braggadocios talking, that he easily took the bait Ali laid before
him. During the sixth round, Foreman was
visibly losing stamina and unable to foster much strength behind his
punches. Somehow, Ali found a way to
survive the onslaught and found the energy within himself for a bit of activity
in the eighth round to knock-down Foreman.
Foreman did not make the count, ending the match and giving Ali the championship
he had sought since March of 1967 (7.5 years since he last fought as champion).
Most farm operations of today
have had a time (or two) in their career where they had their backs against the
wall and wondered how they were going to keep the business afloat and
survive. But, like all great champions,
you found the strength to continue to put-in the long hours and an opportunity
presented itself that provided an advantage.
Most great things are achieved by going-out on a limb and taking a risk
most others may not even think about. In
Muhammad Ali’s situation, he knew Foreman’s strength was powerful bruising
punches, but he also knew himself and his own physical ability to take a heavy barrage of punishment. All of the sports journalists
at the time said that Foreman’s punches were harder and heavier than any
other. It was a high risk for Ali to
implement the “rope-a-dope” strategy, but he believed in himself and found a
way to make it pay-off. When you
understand both yourself and your opponent, you can more easily find successful
paths for positive results.
Regional Weather
Soil temperatures should continue
to build slowly this week with most days in the range of 50’s and 60’sF. Hopefully, we’ll see some moisture develop
after the Easter weekend.
The soil temperature chart (oFahrenheit)
comes from NDAWN at 9 am Monday, March 29th. As you can see, only a few locations are still
showing freezing soil conditions. The
Langdon and Bottineau sites have frost in the top 12 inches of soil, while
Adams, Langdon, Pekin and Grand Forks have at least one reading below 32F at 24
inches or deeper. Fargo and Maddock have
a 40F plus reading at 89 inches deep, while Grand Forks is the only location
showing above 40F in shallow soils.
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 National Oceanic Atmospheric Association (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
For the first full week of April,
the forecast is towards significantly warmer than average conditions for temperatures. Regarding the precipitation chances, they actually
trend to above average for North Dakota, and equal chances for western
Minnesota. We could use a good 1-2
inches across the region, we’ll see what develops.
The NOAA
organization also provides three month outlooks. If we would like to get a general forecast
for the key months of the upcoming growing season (June-July-Aug), it can be
seen here:
https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/.../long_range/seasonal.php?lead=1
This forecast
currently predicts above average chances on the temperature potential, along with
below average chances for precipitation across the region. It continues to be
a developing situation that points our thoughts and actions towards conserving
as much soil moisture as possible to start the growing season.
Risk/Reward of Early Corn Planting
Currently, the primary question around the
countryside is, “when should we start planting?”. We don’t get the opportunity to plant corn inside
of the first 20 days of April very often, so let’s review some tips and tricks:
·
Evaluate the stress emergence score on the
farm’s corn hybrid purchases. Your seed
salesman will be able to provide you a hierarchy of products that have a
greater ability to handle cold stress.
Pioneer products that have the very best stand establishment ability
under 94 RM are P8989AM, P9211AM, P9301AM, and P9492AM. Other suitable hybrids for planting early
include P7527AM, P7632AM, and P8588AM
·
Watch the immediate 2-3 day weather forecast,
for any cold fronts developing. The
first 48-72 hours of the seed being in the ground are the most critical for
early vigor and seedling development
·
As cold front systems develop, look to cease
corn planting 48 hours before storm arrival.
Corn seeds that get placed into warm soil and then have to immediately
(inside 48 hours) go through a stretch of cold conditions will be impacted by
imbibitional chilling, vigor loss, and ultimately stand loss. Once soils warm to a consistent 48-50F and
the calendar turns to early May, I would place less value on this precaution as
soils have built some temperature buffering capacity
·
Evaluate the weather forecast over the upcoming 10-14
days – specifically looking for nightly temps to remain above the low 40’s, and
a GDU accumulation of 85-100 GDU’s over the 14-day span (average requirement for
corn emergence is around 125 GDU’s – target corn emergence inside of three weeks)
·
Ideal corn planting depth is 1.75”. With the dry conditions, we may need to place
seed deeper to obtain uniform moisture conditions. I’ve seen corn seed come from 3+” deep, but
it can be inconsistent. I would
recommend a max planter setting depth around 2.5 – 2.75”
·
Continually evaluate soil moisture conditions
and seed placement into moisture.
Uniform emergence is a key driver in yields
·
Check with your seed provider so that everyone understands
the replant policy and product availability if a replant should occur
·
Confirm crop insurance protection coverages with
the plant dates being implemented.
After all these points, I would still
recommend waiting until soil temperatures warm to a consistent daily max of
52-56F range before planting corn. The
long-term experience in the area indicates that being patient with corn
planting usually results in better plant stand uniformity, better seedling
vigor, higher crop stand establishment numbers, and ultimately better crop
yield potential. Many seasons have produced
very good yields with May 15-22nd corn plant dates. With today’s big machinery, there is no need
to push planting dates in the first three weeks of April under inadequate
conditions – either too dry or too cold.
https://www.pioneer.com/us/agronomy/soil_temp_corn_emergence.htmlhttps://corteva.showpad.com/share/ioF4GC15rENpwXhhpoFwL/0
Planting Soybeans Early
Let’s conduct the same exercise for the
soybeans:
·
Early plant dates should have a full fungicide
seed protection package. Pythium
primarily and fusarium (secondary) are the primary cold soil pathogens
·
Since soybean maturity revolves more around
photoperiod length versus heat unit accumulation (corn), increased yield
potential is only moderately correlated to plant dates. A combination of early plant dates with full maturity
varieties work in tandem to increased yield potential the greatest
·
Early planted soybeans do benefit from earlier
flower dates and thus longer periods of flowering leading to more pod and seed
production
·
Today’s soybean seeding rates on the low end of
the spectrum range from 115k to 140k. If
your operation is in this range, there is risk in not obtaining full yield
potential stands with early plant dates
·
Ideal seed depth placement for soybeans is 1.25
to 1.5 inches. Field emergence can be
erratic with depths in the 2.5-3” range if soils are cold and moisture is
limited
·
Soybeans take about 90-100 GDU’s to emerge. Typically, at the end of April to early May
in the far northern plains, it will take about 2.5 weeks to accumulate 90-100
GDU’s. If we calculate back from a last
spring frost date of say May 14th, we should wait until at least the
last week in April before attempting to plant soybeans
·
Pioneer® soybeans treated with our branded
LumiGEN® seed treatment package have a re-plant policy which includes the seed
treatment package as well.
https://corteva.showpad.biz/webapp2/content/channels... https://corteva.showpad.com/share/dGD5mAvS1QeE1jZgtHpEb/0
Corn Seed Germination Tests
If you evaluate the seed tag on the
actual bag or ProBox of corn seed delivered to your warehouse, the warm
germination score is the only germination category printed on the tag. This is a legal requirement and there is a
standardized test for seed companies to derive the specific warm germination
number for publishing.
However, most agronomists would argue
that the warm germination percentage is only half the battle. In the northern two-thirds or more of the US,
there has been a lot of work done by seed companies and independent ag
laboratory owners in developing and conducting a cold test or a saturated cold
test to determine how successful the seed will be under cold field conditions.
Pioneer’s internal test is called the Pioneer Stress Test (PST). Every Pioneer corn seed lot destined for shipping must pass the PST before leaving the Pioneer seed plant on a yes/no grading system. The PST is continually validated on an annual basis with 10-12 field locations throughout US and Canada with extremely early plantings. The exact procedure is proprietary to Pioneer and continues to be tweaked as more years of data are collected.
Back in 2013, Pioneer did a blind test with
four different hybrids and four different independent labs. The data is presented below and indicates that
commercial laboratories have a difficult time predicting germ percentages under
cold stress. For example, the dark blue
hybrid in the chart, tested at 65% of seeds germinating under Pioneer’s PST,
but the same hybrid tested over 95% germination with a “cold test” from Lab 1
& 3. Basically, independent
laboratories have a very difficult time simulating cold seedling stress
conditions, and thus have a very difficult time in accurately predicting a seed
lot’s ability to establish an adequate stand under stressful conditions.
Pioneer’s PST scores are highly correlated to
the published “stress emergence” characteristic scores in our seed guide. Corn hybrids that rate a “4” or “5” for
genetic stress emergence have average ability to withstand cold stress, hybrids
with “6” or “7” scores are above average.
A score of “3” would be below average, however we do not have any
commercial hybrids with a below average rating in our region’s maturity range.
https://corteva.showpad.com/share/tRHIi3a3BfXwx5b2lqhWW/0 https://corteva.showpad.com/share/WoyVLJS2FiyYDp0B9wtAn/0
Drought Conditions
You don’t need any reminders of the dry
conditions, but here’s a couple revealing items. The 2021 calendar year is starting off as one
of the driest on record, which dates all the way back to 1893. If you are in the very northwestern part of Minnesota,
then it is the driest start in 129 years of records, and if you are in
northeastern to northcentral North Dakota, it in the top 94-95% of the driest
years.
The US Drought Index was last updated
on March 25th, and shows some “extreme drought” developing in the
west central parts of North Dakota (website: https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/ ). It’s not too much of a stretch to say that
we’ll have some fields with steep challenges to get crops up and established
without some significant rain in the coming weeks.
Product Spotlight: P01T92E
Pioneer’s new 01 RM variety with Enlist® herbicide tolerance will be named P01T92E. This variety’s strength will be yield for the maturity zone. However, the genetics rate above average for iron deficiency chlorosis (IDC) and white mold – probably the strongest we’ve seen to date for a combination of these two traits with Enlist® genetics in the early Group 0 maturity zone. The phytophthora root-rot scores are average, but a Lumisena™ fungicide seed treatment will enhance the protection and keep the risk fairly low to phytop root rot.
For a quick review, Pioneer rates their
products on a 1-9 scale with 9 being the best/strongest/tallest. Average characteristic performance scores are
typically 4’s and 5’s; below average is 3, and above average strength would
rate 6 to 7. It is fairly rare to see an
advanced product with a trait score of 8, but it does happen. Most all products that would rate below a 3
on any given single agronomic score would not make it through the process to
become a commercially available product.
There are still a few units available of this
soybean variety and other new Enlist® soybean genetics. Please reach-out to myself and/or your local
Pioneer agent if you’d be interested in trying a field or two.
Random
Agricultural Facts – USDA March Planting Intentions Report
This week, we will have USDA’s Prospective Plantings report on
Wednesday March 31st. It is
one of the most anticipated reports of the year for farmers, grain traders and
industry personnel.
However, did you know that the USDA has production records
dating back on a yearly basis to 1866?
The data collected was fairly rudimentary back then compared to today,
but they did have 10 crops (barley, corn, cotton, flax, hay, oats, rye,
tobacco, wheat and potatoes) and one livestock category (hogs). Reports were not forecasted in March, but
rather only summarized for the completed season. Cropping categories included harvested acres,
average price received, total production volume and yields in bu/ac
format. They did have records for most
states along with summarized national totals (in 1866, there were only 36
states in the Union).
Today, the reports are much more elaborate, but it’s hard to
fathom the cost involved to accumulate and generate and update such reports
throughout the year.
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