“Michael, just
remember that when you entered the league, they changed all the rules so you
could dominate. When I entered the league, they changed all the rules to
prevent me from dominating!” – Wilt Chamberlain to
his verbal combatant Michael Jordan
It would have been great to witness
this conversation as two all-time greats argue back and forth who was the
better player. As usual, the boisterous
Chamberlain was adlibbing a bit when he said, “changed all the rules”, but his
overall claim did have a valid point.
The 1980’s was notorious for referees starting
to allow some blatant rule book violations.
How did you like the no-call of the three (or more) step travel, the
“count the bucket and one” foul call when the foul was clearly committed before
the shot was being attempted, or allowing the super-stars to get away with much
more defensive aggressiveness than their counterparts?? Even though the NBA didn’t change the rules
per se, the alteration of the game by the referee definitely benefited the more
athletic offensive players on the court.
Shortly after the Bulls championship
run in the 1990’s, the NBA liked the trend of smaller players dominating the
game. Therefore, the league officers
completely eliminated the illegal defense rules and the defensive hand check
rule, as well as implemented the defensive 3-seconds in the lane rule. This allowed zone defenses, more
dribble-drive penetration, and more isolation plays. Today, most teams are consisted of players
that are 6’5” to 6’10”, able to shoot the deep three and athletic enough to
prevent a horrific defensive match-up on the crucial screen and switch strategy. Like it or not, the professional game today
is much different than the game played a couple decades ago.
In Wilt’s case, they actually did
change the rules to prevent him from dominating the game so easily. First, the NBA widened the lane from 12 feet
to 16 feet. With the offensive 3-second
lane rule already in place, this forced the big men to post-up further from the
basket. Second was a rule change to
restrict how the offensive team could inbound the ball from under their
basket. It was common in Wilt’s day for a
teammate to throw the ball over the top of the basket on the in-bounds play as
an alley-oop. With Wilt’s height and
jumping ability, it was an easy guaranteed two-points. Third, was changing the free-throw
rules. With Wilt’s consistent inability
to make the 15-foot shot, he changed it up by taking a couple step running leap
from behind the free-throw line and dunking the ball for a successful point. These rule changes seem to make obvious sense
today, but truthfully, they were implemented because of one man’s
dominance.
https://fadeawayworld.net...rules-that-were-changed-because-of-wilt... https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/c/chambwi01.html
In the agricultural world as well, the rules
are always changing. We could go through
some of the examples, but you know them and have experienced them better than
anyone. It’s hard to say what the rules
of the future will entail, but the past trend has been rules modified to make
the large farm more difficult to manage.
However, just like Wilt Chamberlain, the dominant players always find a
way to be successful!
Regional Weather
Well, we should start to see some
more consistent spring time temperatures; into the 60’s for daytime highs and
staying away from those cold nights significantly below freezing. I think most would agree that it’s time to
hit the field as conditions allow for small grains and sugarbeets. By the time the planters are done with
sugarbeets, we should be able to have warm enough conditions for the corn and
probably some early soybeans.
The soil temperature chart (oFahrenheit)
comes from NDAWN at 8 am Monday, April 26th. As you can see over last week’s report, soil
temperatures are building. I highlighted
in blue any readings below 35F and gave the red highlights to any reading above
41F. Bottineau clearly remains the coolest
spot, while Dickinson, Minot and Williston via for the warmest soils in the
state with their very dry conditions out west.
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 May, the
forecast for our region looks to have equal chances for both temperatures and
precipitation. This basically means that
we have equal chances for either above or below average conditions to develop
at this point in time. Since the
forecast does not include a trend to wetter/drier or warmer/cooler, we
typically say we should experience normal conditions. For the first week of May, the normal
conditions would most likely entail some precipitation and some cool mornings.
The
NOAA organization also provides three month outlooks. If we would like to get a general forecast
for the upcoming harvest season (Aug-Sept-Oct), it can be seen here:
https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/predictions/long_range/seasonal.php?lead=4
This
forecast currently predicts above average chances on the temperature potential and
below average on the precipitation potential as we move into the later stages
of the season for our region.
Soybean Planting
With the trend of shifting soybean
planting earlier and earlier to take advantage of extra day length to help
drive yield, I’m sure we’ll probably see a few soybeans go into the ground
these last few days of April/first few days of May this year. The biggest risk is frost injury to those
soybeans as 32F temps can cause injury to emerged soybean plants, and temps at
28F for four hours or more are typically lethal for emerged beans. Fortunately, we’ve avoided those late spring
frosts for most of the last several years and farms have enjoyed greater
success with early planted soybeans.
Today’s seed treatment fungicides are getting more critical, but they have been performing well and are essential for early planting. For the majority of your soybean acres, I’d probably continue to hold off until we see upper 40sF for soil temperature and a nice forecast in the week following. Typical soybean planting conditions call for 55F soil temps and a positive continuing warming trend.
For planting soybeans, place seed into
consistent soil moisture at 1.5” to 2” deep (about the same or slightly
shallower than corn). If dry soil
conditions exist, deeper placement has been successful (2” to 2.5”) to obtain
uniform seed to soil moisture contact and more uniform emergence.
https://corteva.showpad.com/share/IwS8ZeBFUtmb2yfTmdwUr/0
USDA Crop Progress Report
The USDA crop reports have been coming
out for the past couple weeks, but there has been so little activity, I haven’t
bothered to mention them. Today’s report
(Monday, April 26), has the country sitting at 17% planted with only 3% of
acres emerged. If you remove Texas,
Tennessee, and North Carolina from those equations where the majority of corn
has been planted and emerged, the numbers would be even more quiet. However, the 5-year average is only 20% of
the US corn being planted for this date in late April. Soybean planting is only 8% complete across
the country, but slightly more than the 5-year average of 5%.
https://usda.library.cornell.edu/concern/publications/8336h188j
Cold Stress in Corn
With some ultra-early corn going in last
week, let’s review cold stress symptoms for seedling plants. Typically, you will find a combination of the
below symptoms when conditions are stressful.
In the top photo, we see minimal (sometimes, there will be no)
coleoptile growth with primarily radicle growth. This is usually a symptom of too much soil
temperature variability/fluctuation and/or too much cold temperature shock when
the corn first was planted.
The bottom photo is abnormal and elongated
coleoptile growth. These symptoms are
common with the initial imbibing of water that is very cold. Also, do you will notice the highly damaged
coleoptile tips? This is evidence of
frost damage during emergence.
I’m hopeful that the temperatures will regulate
somewhat as we journey into May and the soils will gain enough heat to provide
some buffering conditions. If this
should happen, and then we experience a dip in ambient air temperatures, the
impact on seedling growth will be diminished.
https://www.pioneer.com/us/agronomy/cold-stress-emergence-corn.html https://www.pioneer.com/...earn-the-right/Corn-Stress-Emergence.pdf
Why Do Soybeans Yield More With Earlier
Plant Dates
Since soybeans are more sensitive to daylight
length versus heat units (i.e. corn), we need to think about their yield
parameters differently. With soybeans,
early planting is all about driving maximum vegetative growth before the
reproductive stages begin. Early planted
soybeans may flower slightly earlier than “normal date” planted soybeans, but
it will be a minimal difference of time (a few days).
Soybeans will continue to add vegetative
growth during the flowering and pod development stages, but the more leaf area
index (LAI or vegetative foliage) the plant obtains earlier in the season the
better yield potential we’ll have. With
more LAI, there will be more resources to produce more energy through photosynthesis,
and ultimately support more flower development and increased pod
retention. With more pods being
retained, ultimately, we’ll see more seed being produced per plant, and more
yield produced per acre.
https://coolbean.info/2019/04/10/planting-date-and-maturity-group...
Product Spotlight:
Rezuvant™ Herbicide
Corteva® has recently received federal and ND
state labels for their new spring wheat herbicide - Rezuvant™. This product is a pre-mix of fluroxypyr
(Starane™), Arylex™ (Elevore™), and pinoxaden (Axial™). This provides Corteva® with a grass weed
control herbicide option in Barley and brings a Group 1 option to the table for
spring wheat. With Wild Oat resistance
building with Group 2 herbicides in the western and central part of the state,
Rezuvant™ will be a choice for a chemical rotation option within Corteva®.
Rezuvant’s™ strength will be broadleaf weed
control including kochia, lambsquarter, pigweeds (including waterhemp), ragweed
and maristail in our region.
With a crop rotation interval of 9-10 months
for dry beans, sugar beets and potatoes, it will be a viable option for local
farm managers.
https://www.corteva.us/products-and-solutions/crop-protection/...
Tech Sheet: https://www.corteva.us/...Rezuvant-Fact-Sheet-NA-US.pdf
Random Agricultural Facts – Minichromosomes
Normally, we discuss an aspect of agriculture
history in this section, but today we’ll focus a bit on the future.
As far as Genetically Engineered (GE) crops
go, new technology is on the horizon. Up
until now, GE crops have been developed by inserting modified genetic material
into native DNA strands within plant chromosomes to obtain the desired genetic
expression (i.e. herbicide tolerance to glyphosate). Many opponents to GE crops do not like the
fact that we’re disrupting nature and tainting our food (and/or animal feed)
with un-natural genetic material.
Today, we see the added value of stacked GE
traits in our crops to stay ahead of and control the ever-evolving pests. The plant breeders will warn that as we add
more and more GE traits to the plant, it becomes more and more difficult to
predict the performance of the overall genetic package.
Looking to the future, how do we overcome the
challenges? Can we engineer an
alternative method? Well, plant
scientists have invented minichromosomes to help solve the issue. Minichromosomes will be a new addition to the
plant’s biology and separate from the main chromosomes (however still aid and
link with the overall maintenance/function of the plant). This separation of the mini-chromosomes will
allow for cleaner acceptance of the added GE material, but with far less side-affects
(i.e. “yield-drag” and agronomic trait weakening).
With minichromosomes, we should greatly minimize the risks since we are not altering the native endogenous chromosomes. The trick will be in how the native plant accepts the minichromosomes and allows them to perform. Will it be synergistic or antagonistic? Or, a little of both within certain aspects of the plant? The plant breeding and biology faction of agriculture can truly be amazing at times!
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1937644815000398
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