Crop management considerations during this abnormally dry season

and then we've got Dave Nikolai on who's also been moderating these sessions. But we'll have him talk a little bit about corn and and some of the considerations there with the droughty conditions. And then in the background there, I can see Brad Carlson, we all know is very tuned with nitrogen nitrogen management. I thought so.

We brought them up just in case the discussion heads that way. So With that, I guess Dublin, maybe we'll start with you to to just kind of you know, it's been a weird year, for we control from

limited activity to pre emergence herbicides to in our case in Rochester, at that site no activity because of the planning date and total lack of precipitation. but you know, maybe you want to start and and and address some of the things that have been coming to your mind and questions that may have been coming across your desk.

He was telling that Eastern Minnesota people should understand how it fails when it is dry in western part of Minnesota. So yeah. So we are experiencing a exceptional drought situation. And we do. most of our research out of Rosemont research and Outreach center. And I can talk about how it looks like, because I have the data rainfall for the June month, and we got

close to one inch rain in the whole month, and which is which is 3 inch less than the normal. So in a normal year we'll get about 4 inch rain in whole June, but we got about a inch about an inch. So that's that shows like how dry it is. But last weekend we got about a quarter to I don't know. Maybe quarter inch of rain, and that helped our crop, and I checked the crops. It's looking good I mean looking better, I would say, not good looking better.

But at the same time the water had started emerging again, so due to the dry year. We saw earlier in the May, like by May 15 there were. There was some emergence of water hemp, and after that the emergence really went down. And I was thinking whether they will come back or not, but I knew if there is rain, if there is enough motion in the soil. They will come back

because our swimming and corn is growing slow, due to this dry weather. They are not closing the canopy soon enough. So I saw this week that small water hemp. It started coming up again. and lamps quarter still coming up. So it's like we are end up June. So usually we don't see that much lamps squad or emergence later part of the June. But I'm still seeing lamps. Quarter is emerging. Only cup grass is emerging.

and I saw wik of grass. He's one of the species that german it through the dry period. I mean there was no new emergence from water hemp or Labs quarters, but uly Cupcra started. keep growing and keep you merging. I saw that

there was a lot of questions around. Well, should I go with my whole program, or should I split my program apart? And so we kind of through some talking decided like maybe they would do their their glyphosate application with their volunteer corn

2 weeks ago, let's say, and I hold back, they happen to be an analyst soybean system, both of these hold back that enlist for later for for the situation where water he might start to merge after we get a little bit of rainfall. And so that's that was the strategy that that we came up with.

Now, what about a grower. you know. Maybe I did my whole load 2 weeks ago. Now, what do I got to think about? As far as you know, some of that water hemp that's gonna emerge. Well, the prop is going to be a little slow to canopy.

but if you are, if you planted your corner. So I mean later, part of the May, which was really dry. probably you had very limited activation of the And I hope that you spread your post early enough in that situation to tackle those weeds, because we have some plots that was planted may fifth, and those those plots are still looking great in the from the standpoint of

priests. But then we have some plots that was planted, maybe 2 weeks after, like around May 20, and Pretty did not get activated, and it was like a really we d plot. And if I go back now to spray some of the posts.

I think the lamps quarter would be one feet or one and half feet tall, so so I hope the folks who planted later part of the May and did not get enough activation of the Pre. They already sprayed their post. But you still have some options, for example. like if you're if you want to spray some kind of clean up treatment for liberty you still have option to spray it until R. One stage of soybean, and like as same like in list one, you can spray through part 2.

So some residual Harvey side, because I told you the water am started coming up so you can tank mix your treatments like liberty, or enlist one with some kind of residual and that will give you some opportunity for residual control for water. Hemp and example could be warrant.

It can be sprayed before our 2 stage or full flowering, so you can spray until our one of soybean Our cloak will be slightly earlier. if I'm not mistaken. It's I think, up to v. 5 stage of soybean. So if you're so in past v. 5, and it's close to our one, maybe it's not good choice for you.

But yeah, there are some group 15 s. that you can still tack makes and get some control of the water ham. Residual control of water. Hem! And just just, I would remind you, if you're using analyst one, or even liberty as a clean up treatment right now. be careful. If your water hemp or lamps quarter is tall enough like one feet of 6 80 in. Tall.

you may not get 100% killed because I saw one picture yesterday. Somebody put it on the twitter from the western part of Minnesota. And definitely he sprayed in list one to water hemp, which is close to one feet tall, and it's not dying, so not necessary. It is registered to at least one or 2 4 d. But it was sprayed when it was too tall. So you have to take care of the growing points. How many growing points on that plan!

are there other things to think about? Then, aside from size, if if things have got away from you. What other things are you thinking about to kind of boost your control in those environments where we've got? Maybe we've got a little too tall. And we've got a harsh environment that they've been growing in.

and for herbicide, like liberty, consider other factors like you should spray when it is a sunny hot day with some humidity in the environment, because that helps with the liberty, activity, or glucose in it. Activity. So those are definitely a few things you should consider. So just read the label and don't escape any kind of adjuants if it is mentioned in the label, because especially like dry and hot conditions those adjuants helps uptaking up those herbicide in the weed.

something that comes to mind, or some of those restrictions. Now, as we get later into into into the month both the cut offs as well as some of the carry over concerns, for in particular for mesopen. So that'd be a flex star would be a product to everyone's familiar with. But there are many products that have for mess been in it. And do folks need to start thinking about making a change and and look at different ppos, if that's what they're planning on.

like last year's clo per lead injury from in this year's soybean. And similarly, I saw some flexter or form of of an injury from last year that carry over to this year's corn. So yes, that's because, you know, last 3 years kind of we are straight into this drought spell.

and some part of the State got ran some part did not, so I think that is one of the consideration you should keep in mind, and one of my colleagues used to say that if you spray anything in July, that's not a good idea, because there is a high chance of carry over to next crop or next year. So definitely consider those things, and I will give you example like

I saw this year. Somebody send me pictures of clo pirate a stinger injury as well as he said, another picture of some kind of HP. Pd. In Julian, we figured out it is probably callish to or miser try, and from last year. But if you consider those 2 herbicides, if you see their half-life, I'm just coming straight from the herbicide handbook, calisto or mizotrine has 15 days of half-life, whereas a clo pilot, your stinger has up to 70 days of half life, so

still, like we saw some injury from both the herbicides this year in soybean from a crop consultants picture. So I'm just trying to remind you like, if this dry spell continues, if we don't get enough rain in the future. this year, maybe. it's not good idea to spray Some of those herbicide like clo parade or form is often in later in the season. especially when we are heading into July.

that you're familiar with, right blast from the past that we could switch to, if need be. Now these tend to ding up or bronze your beans pretty good, but there are a couple of options.

probably might have a I have a fit. I think you have to look at all of these labels. So when it comes to their gross states on savings, because we've already got sorry beans that are are starting to bloom Dublin, you know, and becoming our one we've we've switched over the you know, summer Sol to here. We're at the point, obviously, where these are going to get

a little shorter. So that's triggered that so That has an effect to when what you can apply and what you can't, because you're having a portion of that field that's already going to be in our one

Mother Nature did quite a bit for us, and the small-seated broadle of weeds. they didn't really come that top quarter inch of soil. It was very dry, so I haven't seen a lot of lambs, quarters, fox tales been less of an issue. I think Devlin mentioned woolly cup grass. He's seeing barnyard grass. Those are things that come in warmer seasons like this, and I'm I'm a little worried about that. The one thing I think is is has potential to get ugly is water hemp Soybeans

are short. They're not growing like normal, and you mentioned they are flowering. That's that's sort of a day length thing, it really it doesn't really matter how tall they are. If water hemp has a canopy, and we do get the right conditions, it will. It will rear its ugly heads. So pay attention to the what we can do with some residuals on this crop this time here, and someone also mentioned that

both from next year's standpoint and this year's standpoint. not very many good things happen when we start spring. So it means for weeds in July. So we're getting right up there. Some of those big lamb's quarters. What can you do? Well, some people might have their old cultivators. That might be a a tool that comes into play this year when when the sweeping canopy isn't doing its job.

that's something we can think about. So we picked up a nice in terrain. Corn is starting to use some of that deeper soil moisture. I think most of the southern part of the State. There there is a decent. We have good water, holding capacity soils, and if we can get enough rain to where the crop can utilize some of that

corn hybrids could handle some of those products. in particular, we have a little trial we're doing with the Dean Melvich on some fun to side things, and 2 different hybrids in there, and I used a a product in there. early post at the full strength. I won't name names because I, you know. typically don't see this. But we we did see

source differential response. And I know a number of growers in the area that did see some of the same things in particular, where they charged up their booms, they'd see some pretty extensive bleaching and and injury to to the corn crop anywhere where they overlapped. And and I would. I'm kind of putting point my finger at the the lack of moisture. And this, you know, kind of the challenge of a

to grow and metabolize the product. Just kind of throw that out there, because there were no insecticides involved. There was not an organoposphate that would have caused

Typically, you know, it's just genetics that affect the number of rows. But you know, if we have severe stress in there or you know, if we had some of those areas, did we have Brad up a a, a lack of end that hurt us earlier on. If these corn reps get. get down deeper and so forth, or are they? Can they recover?

dark the the crop has gotten dark green. The crop has gotten since the rain over the weekend. Remember that the the nitrogen cycle is going to turn that nitrogen into nitrate and nitrate is primarily moving into the plant through water uptake. And so when they most of the nitrogen is up in that top foot of the soil, and the top foot of soil is bone dry. And even though you may not see

great drought stress, although we did see quite a bit of drought stress by the end of last week. it's picking up the water from the bottom of the root system where there's not a lot of nitrogen so That could have been something that was affecting, I think. Personally, I I've seen a lot of unevenness and fields that, in my opinion, probably was a lot more related with water availability just simply based on so

and landscapes. And so we we know that there's different soils that that hold water. Better have deeper water or water. Tate access to water tables. Other places on the landscape are more drill prone. And so I'm seeing a lot of different a lot of raggedness and unevenness and fields based on that in the last 3 weeks. you know, at this point

because of the the weather. Now the warm temperatures. Now there is some moisture, at least in a lot of parts of the state, not everywhere, but most places have decent moisture in the top.

This is the time of year. We start seeing a lot of mineralization and nitrogen on a soil organic matter. So provided we continue to have some moisture now on that top 6 inches photo soil I don't anticipate seeing a lot of nitrogen stress visible what you're going to potentially see, though, is, if we had nitrogen issues, loss issues based on

what the weather was like earlier in the year. Now those will probably start manifesting themselves in late August. The crop might just simply run short toward the end of the year. frankly, our research has shown that it's it's really ineffective to be applying in season nitrogen in Minnesota, past about v. 10 v. 12. We're kind of there with a lot of the

the the fields. And so ultimately, now, there's not a lot you're going to do management wise. It's really more of a case of paying attention to this and deciding. if there's any lessons to be learned, as far as what you're going to do next year.

you know, we know that there's been a lot of trend towards side dress nitrogen the last decade or so we've had a couple of years where it was really challenging to get out in the field because of it being too wet. on a consistent basis. And now this year we had a lot of situations where you could get out there. But producers were calling and saying, it's so dry what's going to happen to it when I put it on

So I guess when I talk about other lessons to be learned for the future, you know, that's maybe something to be thinking about is, is, is side dress.

really an important part of how you manage nitrogen? If so, then be thinking about ways to minimize the loss. And if it's just one of those things you think well, it's a good thing to do, you know. Maybe be thinking about that, that. Maybe it's putting you at risk to, to not get your nitrogen applied, or to potentially lose it if the weather conditions are unfavorable.

Now we're going to be to point where it's the number of you know, kernels in a row. And and there's a lot of things that can happen, Tom, over the years, you know. Then, when we get to that point in terms of of affecting that, that your length through that that role length in there, in this especially getting into July. Correct?

before then. Sometimes that leave rolling, we see isn't really detrimental to corn eels. But be nice to pick up some range here. We did get a nice inch that's gonna carry us for at least 10 days now. And I I looked on the map. Rochester Ryan. Sorry you didn't get that hopefully. Maybe tonight you can pick up the storm. I think there's some potential 40%.

Well, at least something. There's potential there. But I looked at our records at this point. In time we are much better off, and everybody remembers 1988. at least people my age. When you talk about hot dry, they just 1988 comes to the front of their mind, and and we are much better off than we were that year. So also, so once we're at the B 12 ish stage, we got a couple of weeks till we hit tassel.

It, Rochester. We're going to expand the discussion a little bit to incorporate some insect topics. We had quite the issues with Army Worm. And so Bruce Potter will be there to discuss some of some of the management concerns we've got around Army warm and cut worm, and some of the things that happen this year, and so

we'll also have Bay yang there. Who's our new corn entomologist? So you get a chance to meet him. we're looking to connect him with some of the growers in that area for work with corn insects, so we'll have a couple of extra things Dublin's graduate students will be down to to talk about some of the work they're doing

with herbicide resistance screening and some of their cover crap thing so and double will be there. So we'll have a a broader discussion. It'll it'll be weed management. But some of the things that play along with weed. So it should be a good time. And looking forward to that.

So yeah, there'll be some interesting topic. And also we'll discuss some pros and cons of growing cover crop cereal right cover crop in a year like this, because this is a unique year. And yeah, the termination timing was really crucial, but at the same time we have to weigh the

way, the pros and cons of growing cereal right cover crops specially year, like 2,023. So yeah, I think those 2 field days will be really exciting, and I'll be there in both of the field days. So if you have time, please try to be there, and I think last week we already sent out and Minnesota crop

news article about Rochester Field Day July sixth, and then today. Then another crop news article is going out regarding Rosemont Field Day, that is, on July 12, and I think both of the field days will be in the morning or so from 8 30 to noon. So yeah, please, if you can make it, please try to be there