Joe, welcome back to the war against weeds Podcast. I'm Joe Ikley extension weed specialist at North Dakota State University. Today's co host is Alyssa Essman at The Ohio State Alyssa, how's it going in the Ohio today?
Good starting to get the itch for we're wrapping up plans for field season and making making all of our plans
Yeah. So we're recording late March here. for spring. Probably listen to this in the early middle part of April. So folks will probably probably be planting by the time we're actually listening to this. But speaking of planting, we are going to talk about soybeans today, so specifically, non GMO soybean, and we have two guests on from the state of Wisconsin.
So we're going to start with a repeat guest. Rodrigo Werle, why don't you, for those who either haven't listened to a while, haven't listened, let everyone know who you are and what you do.
Hey, Joe. Hello Alyssa, thanks for having me here again. Always great to be talking to you. So for those of you out there, Rodrigo Werle, I'm the extension weed scientist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
All right, and then the other guest today is Andy Bensend, so Andy, why don't you introduce yourself to the audience and a little bit about what you do?
All right, my name is Andy Bensend. I reside in Northwest Wisconsin. Some people would say we're almost Minnesota. I don't like to go quite that far. Still support the Packers. So, you know, we we pretty loyal to our Wisconsin roots. Here. I'm a fifth generation farmer. Have a about a 4000 acre cash grain operation here in western Wisconsin, growing corn, non GMO soybeans, and we do some winter wheat as well, and we'll maybe talk a little bit about that as we go.
But Rodrigo invited me to join you guys today because I do some different approaches to some of our weed issues that have had some success with, and just want to share some of those things.
Yeah, perfect. And then that. That's the meat that
Well the marketplace gives us an we'll get into later. But I figured at the beginning we should talk about some production of just non GMO soybean. And so the first couple questions Andy will be geared incredible opportunity to enhance our cash flows and our more towards you, but you know, thinking about soybean our prices, our market prices for non GMO beans typically specifically, what are some of the reasons and benefits that you are growing non GMO soybean?
carry a nice premium over the commercial varieties. Most of our beans are going to Asia for food, food grade uses. So we like to talk about the fact that they're an IP or an identity preserved. So our end end users are specifically contracting with the marketers for specific varieties, and there are some restrictions over just how we can do that, but it's, it's not
an organic program at all. It's a it's a IP program. The the varieties have specific flavor profiles or specific protein profiles that they're looking for to make things like tofu and Tempe and soy milk and miso and Natto. We don't grow any natto varieties, but those are the kinds of soy foods that are typically used in Asia.
Yeah. Well, I Think we have the same marketing firms that across our geography, coming all the way up here. So very similar story to the North Dakota farmers growing the same non GMO beans and so yeah, that obviously the specialty is giving you a benefit for the export market. And before we really get into weeds and those challenges, what other challenges are presented by growing non GMO soybeans?
Well, one of the things that that we focus on is, number one, the quality of the soybean at harvest. So we're we're very in tune at harvest time to not end up with any stains or dirt stains or grass or green stains on the beans. We really want our our product to be table ready when they get get done processing and packaging these beans, also, we have to
pay a lot of attention to purity. Our contract states that they'd be GMO negative means that the beans are sampled and they're checked for the presence of those proteins that would indicate either a roundup ready or e3 or extend soybeans, we can't have any of those proteins present in the samples. We also really, really work hard at trying to make sure that we follow the protocols. There are some chemicals that are a no no in our contract, so we have to do the. That we're very, very in
tune with our soil quality. We're trying to have as healthy a product as we can, trying to keep our soils as healthy as we can. Because, again, when we're dealing with the public, the Asian community has not all of Asia, but specifically Japan, and to some degree, Korea and Southeast Asia, the non GMO beans carry a premium that follows all the way through to the end product. And so when they put their name and their label on something, they really they want to be proud of it.
They love to know the farmers that are producing. So we've had an opportunity to visit Taiwan. We've had an opportunity to visit Japan and visit with those buyers who are using our beans. And that makes an especially neat connection as well. We like that. Actually, the company we market through is from North Dakota, SB&B Sinner Brothers & Bresnahan, if those of you who are listening know that family have been wonderful to work
with. They have a processing plant here in bloomer Wisconsin, which is only about 30 miles from my farm, but have gotten to be good friends with those folks and rely on them a lot in terms of making sure that they find good markets and and good premium offerings for us, for for that production,
and they pick really good locations for their winter meeting updates, as Rodrigo and I are aware of,
yeah, one, one thing if I, if I may, here Joe real quick. So Andy and I, we had a meeting earlier this year at the SB&Bfacility in bloomer we were talking about, you know, targeted herbicide application technologies with the growers in the region, was a fantastic meeting. But, you know, like Andy talked about the quality of the beans we had when we were there. We had the opportunity to tour the facility, and we had
the chance to see the product. And like Andy said the quality of those beans were just mind blowing, and they had their own lab there for doing all the testing and so on. So it was quite impressive, and a really, really serious business there. And in talking about SB and B, I reached out to Scott center yesterday, in preparation for this conversation, I just asked you know some numbers from Scott because I was curious about adoption of non GMO soybeans in our neck of the woods here, Joe.
So what Scott shared with me is that, you know, if you look at North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, roughly 10 to 12% of the soybeans, soybean acres are non GMO. And then from those about five to eight are for food grade, and the rest is used for feed and also for seed production. Just so sharing some numbers there, I thought the number was going to be around five to seven, but what I learned is about 12% that that was quite interesting.
Yeah, let's find multiply that across the acres in those three states, and that gets to over a million acres of non GMO soybeans. So that's actually good perspective. Glad you reached out to Scott, because it it shows this isn't just a small market. These are some significant acres in the in the Upper Midwest, at least for this discussion. And
then, you know, one thing, didn't know, I'll have Andy comment on this a little bit, but you know, Scott shared some really good insights. You know, the premiums are very, very attractive, right? But you gotta be able to manage that crop well, and we're going to get to that point a
little bit. But if all goes well, and if you can maintain your yield potential with the current markets here, he's talking about like $120 per acre difference there, you know, associated to those premiums, which become interesting, right? But then I think one, one point that Scott, you know, asked me to kind of convey to the audience, is the importance of
understanding the markets and and the buyers, right? Having those buyers close by so you have a good relationship, just like Andy mentioned, he has a good relationship with SB&B's, or growers are growing, you know, they're growing a good crop, but they can also sell it and benefit from it, right?
Yep, no, definitely, all good stuff to add and so glad you reached out to Scott, because I meant to and ran out of time, you know. So the other thing that'd be nice to just touch on, before we shift gears to weeds, we kind of alluded to it, is, you know, some of the, I'll say chemistry prohibitions of these contracts. And so this is something our growers are used to, particularly in the dry bean market, where I feel this
question a dozen times a year. It's like, can I spray? In this case, I'm thinking for driving, it's gonna spray glyphosate as a pre harvest desiccations, like on the label, yes, but always check with your contract. And so I thought it'd be a good question for Andy of you know, are there any of these things that just pop out as a typical use pattern? Maybe for some folks at these contracts, because of the importance of the end user, or just practices that we don't use in these beans.
Yeah the pre harvest desiccation is when we were in Brazil Rodrigo we experienced what their normal harvest practices are, to desiccate using diquat. And that would be a no no on our contract. We can't use anything in the paraquat family at all that that's specifically specified in our contract. And same is true with glyphosate pre
harvest. So we have to avoid those things. It's not a problem for us that, you know, we're not like in Brazil, there's a double crop where they're really in a hurry to get the super early corn planted, of course, following the soybean harvest. Here, the best thing we can expect to do is maybe get a small grain, like a winter wheat or a rye or something planted for a cover. But typically we just let the beans senesce and mature naturally and and when they get to the moisture level
that we can deal with them in the bin. That's that's when it's go time, as long as we're not doing any dirt staining on those beans again, so if the stems are full of SAP, we're going to get dirt stains. So we have to really be patient, you know, with with the harvest. There are probably some other cultural practices that might be a no no, just because of the genetics, you know, Non GMO beans specifically don't have any tolerance for a Dicamba of any sort, or or 2,4-D or the likes
of that. So it would be self defeating to try to use those chemistries. She wouldn't have beans left in a quick, hurry if you did that, right?
So I'm going to take the stained seed to transition into weed control, because that just makes me think of all the issues with night shades that have gone away from any but can come back, but some maybe night shade will make you less maybe it won't, but I think we'll, we'll go ahead and focus on your region of and we'll shift gears to weeds here. So what are the problematic weeds in your region? And maybe as a general
and then specifically, you know what? What's the biggest challenges in your soybean crop?
Well, in my soybean crop, and we've been doing the non GMO beans for ever since the roundup beans came on, this on the scene. And of course, our area has all of the notable weeds that the rest of the Upper Midwest does, the waterhemp family, but our real Nemesis here has been the ragweed family. We have some common ragweed that has gotten resistant to first rate. We have giant ragweed that has changed, and this is Rodrigo as well. Is really I was gonna say. It's his
world house. It's his wheelhouse. The giant ragweed has developed an extended emergence pattern where, instead of 25 years ago, the ragweed would all emerge in a very tight window, and when they were the right size, you could hit them with chemistry and basically eliminate the giant ragweed for the season. And what's happened is the ragweed has genotypically, now developed the ability to emerge sporadically
over an extended period of time. And so when you're trying to control a giant ragweed with a post product, very, very difficult to keep hitting those newly emerged weeds at the proper time, because, for example, using something like flexstar, you can't spray Flexstar all summer. It's just too hard on the crop. And you're building up enough of that product in the soil, it's going to give you a grief when you come along with the following crop. You have to start to think
about other strategies. And we've tried a number of things, you know? We've tried the weed Zapper, and we've we've tried to change chemistries around using layered residual approaches. And quite honestly, we haven't been terribly successful with a lot
of those. The one thing that has really made a difference for us is getting the winter wheat in following the soybeans, and that gives us the opportunity to use some chemistries in the winter wheat to control the giant ragweed very well, and then we follow that with a good cover crop approach. We're using medium red clover, and we're using a little bit of daikon radish and a little bit of purple top turnips. And then there's always some volunteer wheat that comes along. And so
we get a good multi species cover crop going there. And the medium red clover, of course, over winters really well. So the next spring, we have a good, a good batch of media red clover making some pre nitrogen for us. For the corn, I shouldn't say it's free. Obviously have to buy the seed. But when it comes to a soil quality impactor, I don't think you can do much. Better than what medium red clover does for you, looking at the soil, looking at the behavior the soils after medium red clover is
just nothing sort of amazing. What it'll do for you, together with the little bit of volunteer wheat that comes back there as well.
It sounds like a program you've kind of dialed in over the years. And is that kind of the building around the the soybean crop? Or, you know, how did you kind of come across that program?
Well years ago, we used to, we used to broadcast some clover seed in with the nitrogen on the wheat in the spring. We're doing what we called frost seeding. That that program is still works great if you're if you don't have the weed control issues, but when we're trying to control the ragweed in the winter wheat, obviously, that's in the same broadleaf category that the herbicides that work on ragweed
really do a good job at eliminating the red clover. So we had to modify our strategies and planting the red clover make it a little bit later, and that allows us to, you know, to accomplish both of our goals. The other thing that is really neat about getting that cover crop on in the fall is we have, we have all rolling soil, rolling fields up here. We're 90% probably, H, E, L, so we don't have the nice flat ground
that you guys have in the valley, for example. So we have to be very conscious about the surface water movements, especially if we get heavy rains, and the cover crops just really do a job for us there. And then the next spring, of course, when the clover greens up and begins to grow aggressively, it it gives us a really good shading impact and really puts those giant ragweed seedlings at a disadvantage. And
they just don't, they don't give us any grief. And of course, in corn, we have great tools to use for broadleaf control and corn as well. So it just we can see right to the line where we put weed in the rotation and where we don't. It's remarkable.
Yeah, it's great. And so before we kind of move into some other things, Rodrigo just wondering from a statewide perspective. So the top two weeds I heard were water him for pig weeds and then the ragweed family and the other calls you get from some other folks in the non GMO acre.
Yeah no so I think, you know, just like love, like listening to Andy him and I, we get on the phone all the time and exchange ideas. I love to see and hear what he's dealing with. And I think depends who you ask, right? But when we do our surveys year after year, waterhemp is always number one, and then giant ragweed is always our number two, okay? And then from there on, if you're asking soybeans, then you have, yeah, maybe volunteer corn. You have
lambsquarters, you know, like in grasses. Now we're having more problems with late season grasses, but those two top weeds are always the top weeds, no matter who you're asking. But one thing that's really neat when we talk with non GMO growers, have been non GMO growers for a long time. Waterhemp doesn't seem to be that bad of a problem for them. Like waterhemp is for the, you know, GM or conventional growers, if you would. So it kind of, you know, flips the
scenario. And when you start talking to them, our non GMO growers, you may ask. Andy here, they've been using residual herbicides forever, right? They've been using residual herbicides because they didn't have access to glyphosate, and then liberty and list and, you know, until recently, Dicamba here. So that's kind of the change there. So I love talking with the non GMO growers, because they always kind of point me to the direction of the residual herbicides that work
quite well. So they got water hemp under control, because they've been using residual herbicides, right? We look at the paper, you know, like we were part of recently, had we not stopped using residual herbicides, we would be in a better position. That's what we learned from the non GMO growers there. But then on the back end, what we've learned through our research over the years is that residual herbicides,
unfortunately, are not as effective on giant ragweed. So residual herbicides are excellent for water hemp, but not necessarily for giant ragweed, and that's because of the nature of the plant, right, extended emergence window. But if you look at the seed size, you know the giant ragweed seed is about the same size as your soybeans. So it takes a lot of herbicide in order to be effective, and usually when we're spraying, we're not spraying high enough rates.
Okay, so then what you need for giant ragweed is post emergence options, which we have in the traded beans, but we don't necessarily have as many in the GM beans there. So I think this conversation is is fascinating, the way, you know, we position our chemicals and how that goes. But I think what Andy mentioned here, you know, crashing that rotation and adding that winter
wheat plays a huge role. You know, some data in the literature says that less than 80% of, you know, giant ragweed seeds survives the winter, and after two winters, you have very few seeds that are still viable. So by. Adding this other crop to that rotation, you really help manage that soil seed bank. So I think it gives more opportunities for chemical management and cultural management, like Andy said, but you also buy more time until those soybeans are back into
that rotation. So altogether, you know, diversifying the corn soy rotation with that winter wheat, I think it opens up a lot of opportunities. So at the end of the day, I think we're kind of in a similar boat here, upper midwest waterhemp, and we're giant ragweed being the the top ones there Joe.
Yeah I think it's pretty similar in in our geography. I mean, the one main difference is we're spring wheat more so than winter wheat. So you sprinkle in some grasses. So green foxtail wild oat resistant to our group one and group two post emergence herbicides. That's becoming a much bigger challenge for us, and our giant ragweed still behaves. It's in river bottoms mostly, but common ragweed for us, yeah, that's once we get group two and 14 resistance. I'm almost, I'm
almost out of chemistry options. So it's, it's one I'm kind of shifting my my focus on to try and figure out something for ragweed. But otherwise, yeah, pretty similar across the whole upper midwest then and then, if we go further east, to the person who caused all of our ragweed issues, Alyssa,
(laughs) yeah, yeah, we've, I mean, all the species you listen and I agree, Joe, we have some of those PPO resistance issues, and some of our common ragweed populations, especially in those areas where we have a lot of non GMO production, so that causes some issues. And one of the questions I had here, and I think Rodrigo you alluded to this, is, you know, there's a really comprehensive option for residual herbicides, but when we get into non GMO, of course, we
lose those post options. So what is your strategy when you think about designing a post program for non GMO soybeans for some of these problem bleeds we've talked about, yeah,
some really good questions. So I'll start off here, and then I'll let you guys chime in you as well, Andy, if you want to share your experiences. But the one thing I want to say is, you know, we have a graduate student here Guilherme Chudzik and he looked at planting times of soybeans, right? Because there's this tendency of planting our beans
earlier and earlier before we started the call here. Andy was actually kind of, you know, playing around, saying that, you know, pretty soon here, he's going to be getting a call from Dr Shawn Conley telling him to start planting, right? But the one thing that we're learning through his research, and I'll take a closer look at all our trials, the earlier we plant, the more weeds we gotta deal with, right? And that kind of
makes sense. The problem is, the earlier you plant, to optimize your yield potential, you're gonna have more of those weeds. And if you have limited tools, that's where it becomes very, very tricky. So one thing that we learned through Guilherme's research, focusing primarily on giant ragweed in the southern part of Wisconsin is if you were a little patient. I think Andy used that word before patient. If you don't rush, you'll plant
those beans. If you, instead of doing like in April, wait to plant them until mid May, you have an opportunity to either burn down herbicides or pre plant tillage, to eliminate at least 50% of the giant ragweed cohort before planting. All right, because if you're planting in mid April, you're going to be dealing with all be dealing with all the cohort of
giant ragweed that starts coming up in April. Now, if you delay your planting time and then eliminate that cohort, so it's all about understanding what you're going up against, right? If I have heavy giant ragweed, I'm not going to tell that grower to plant early. I'm going to tell them, delay that planting time, do a good job starting clean, right, like we talked about, and then you go on, you give up potentially in a
little bit of yield potential, right? But if you don't control that giant ragweed, that giant ragweed is incredibly competitive, that you that your potential is going to be gone through weed competition anyways. So for those scenarios where we have giant ragweed, and even common ragweed, for that matter, delaying that plant, and even though you might lower your yield potential a little bit, might be a benefit for weed
control. So it's a fine balance here between, you know that planting time, and trying to optimize yield control, or weed control and yield potential. So that's one thing. The other thing, across the Midwest, there's a lot of resistance to ALS herbicides, right? I think Andy and I were starting to talk a little bit about this yesterday, waterhemp. You know, when we do other screenings here, more than 90% of our
waterhemp is als resistant. That's not a surprise. Felipe Fauci, my program has found that about a third of the giant red weed that we screen here is also als resistant. Okay, so we have ALS resistance. That's okay, but because of that information, I think a lot of folks are taking als chemistry away from their
programs. However, one of the very few effective options for residual control giant ragweed are our ALS herbicides, where they can be used, whether is your chlorine, your own first you know, or your classic, your first rate or your pursuit, depending where you're at and whether those can be used when they're used pre and according to research, if you put an ALS in combination with the PPO herbicide, whether it's valor Spartan or Flexstar when you're combining in a group two and a
group 14, we do tend to get really good residual control of both giant ragweed and common ragweed. So my message is, maybe we have started to take als chemistry away, but once you take your als chemistry away from your residual herbicide program, you start having a lot of large seeded species come
through. So I urge our growers to take a closer look at those programs and not remove that als chemistry from the residual program, because even though we have resistance out there, when they're combined with something else, they still provide good value. And I don't know what your guys's observations and recommendations are, but this is kind of where I stand it.
It's the same for us. The only thing is, we lose more tools. Is as you know, as he led some regional efforts, and I'm always a problem child, yeah, so we don't have chlorimuron and fomesafen. We can't use pre emergence north of I 94 so majority of acres for me. But yeah, so we look a couple of those tools based on where we're at, but otherwise, yeah, the same thing. If you're gonna get that value out of that group 2, specifically thinking about ragweed. Get it on at planting.
Yeah, we've been, we've been, of course, trying to do a good job of burn down early, with early, early 2,4-D or glyphosate to start clean, like Rodrigo has to share with us, and then at planting time, or right there about we've been using some sharpen and Outlook together, which is verdict, and also perhaps Zidua We've been using anthem Max, which is Cadet and Zidua. And so as long as we can spray before the bean
emerges, we can still use glyphosate. And so glyphosate is kind of a no brainer for us, as long as the beans are not above ground. And then coming back with our after for our post, we like flex star and warrant together, which is warrant Ultra So here again, you start to see our layered residual approach, where we're relying to control those small seeded broad leaves with that, either the, you know, the the grass control products, basically, but they also control the small seeded broad leaves.
And then we'll still put, we'll still still put some pursuit in there, and tie that together with an old chemistry the basagran us, I think, a little better ability to control the ragweed that maybe gotten a little bit taller, where normally, once you get to a four leaf ragweed, they're just about impossible. But by having some basagran in there, I think we can handle those all right. We still can't. If they're six or
eight inches tall, you've still lost the battle. But the four inch tall weeds, I think the basagran gives us quite a bit of help there. And then you still, then have kept your if you really have some hot spots, you can still come back with those, those burners, those diphenyl ethers, whether it's cobra or whether it's some other form of that. But, yeah, we just never, never let her put off the gas pedal, on the on the herbicides,
trying to keep those ragweeds under stress the whole time. One of the things that I've had several discussions with Rodrigo on and that is using the cereal rye, following the corn. Now plant cereal rye and then to see if we can roller, crimp and create a a weed mat with the cereal rye to control the rag
the giant ragweed in particular. And because giant ragweed is incredibly competitive, and it likes to reach and stretch for sunlight by roller crimp and the rye down when it gets big enough to really do some good, you have to wait for an thesis if you want the rye to stay down. And the problem for us is is that gets to be a little bit late in the season. But we've had, we've had some pretty good success, roller, crimp and rye down. The
biggest problem there is the the tillers don't stay down. You get the main stems and but the tillers don't like to stay down. So we'll come back with a little bit of clethodim to clean those tillers up, but I've had equal yields roller crimping with no other herbicides, where I've used my chemical program and side by side, split the field and and relied on the roller crimp dry. And there are some numbers of how much vegetation are needed. My memory is that somewheres around two to two and
a quarter tons of dry matter per acre or biomass per acre. I don't know if it's dry matter or biomass. I can't remember that, but it's, it's a it's basically about waist high. You have enough vegetation to really cover that ground and do a pretty good job with weed control without used herbicides at all. Now the catch our crop insurance says that we have to terminate the cover crop prior to emergence. Or in the case of
no till, they'll give us an extra seven days. So within seven days of emergence, they want the cover crop material, rye, roller, crimp down, if that's how we're going to terminate it, or we can terminate it with chemistry. But that flies in the face of planting soybeans early to pick up the extra yield. Well, I'm going to plant a few beans this
year, ultra early. I know that we're going to have weed pressure, but where I've got a pretty good stand of rye, hopefully established, and roller crimp the rye and the beans together and see if I can get enough beans to survive through that I know there won't be insurable unless our May changes their mind, but so far, they've told me No, but I'll have a few without without crop insurance, just to see if I can
prove the concept. The the hypothesis is I gain enough yield by planting early and I don't damage the beans to the point where I'm when I knock them out of the stand by roller crimp and late. One of the things that I've done is I've gone out to North Dakota and picked up some of your gardener
rye, which is an earlier rye variety. I bought a semi load of it last year and planted rye on about 1100 acres of of corn after harvested for grain, which gets to be a little bit late, but the rise there, it was up last fall, so we'll see what things look like this spring. It's just I'm always fooling around trying to find another opportunity to maximize my weed control at the same time reducing my input expenses, and couple that together with the fact that if I can be successful
with this, I'm going to wrap it up on more acres. If I know that I can do a good job, then I've got a legitimate argument, after a few years of data, to go back to RMA and say, well, here's what my data shows me.
This is sounds like, you know, the other, the other, I'll just call it a challenge of weed control is you're just constantly tinkering, you know, take that easy button away that a lot of folks would like to lean on, sometimes too much and just lot of refinement over the years, is what I'm hearing.
Well, the organic industry has been doing things similar to that, but they, they have the same rules. They have to terminate, you know, before the before the beans are up. I don't know how well they get that done, unless they're waiting until the 20th of May to plant the beans. Because we're, we're, we're very rarely at anthesis before the first week of June.
So, Andy, I'm curious if you have some folks who are maybe interested in non GMO for the premium, but kind of nervous about this sort of different management. What would be some of your suggestions for folks starting out in this non GMO space?
Oh, that is a good question. When people ask me about non GMO production, the first thing I like to talk to him about is, are they prepared for the extra work involved in keeping your combine, your harvester, clean and and pure. And the same thing with the planting equipment. One of the secrets that we use to keep our different varieties separate is
using different row widths. So we know, for example, if it's drilled, it's variety a, and if it's in rows, it's variety B, and then maybe to some degree, the row width can also differentiate further. We made the choice some years ago that we would go all non GMO, or we would go none, because of the fact that when you have commercial beans and they have
traits, you cannot tolerate any chance of contamination. And those years, when we did some trial work where we had the non GMO beans and the GMO beans together in the same field, we treated them all like non GMO beans, and when we harvested them, they went on the truck and they left the farm immediately. We did not use any opportunity to contaminate in any way, shape or form. So that would be the first thing be prepared for the
extra, extra work involved. The second thing you need to be prepared for is marketing wise, most of your non GMO buyers want to operate on what we call a buyer's call basis. In other words, the marketing company, sbnb, in my case, will call me and say, I need six loads of beans next week. Are you able to bring them? And they typically will give us a choice. Do we want to bring them or not? But they're not going to haul them all to market at once, and so it's probably important that you
have a place to store the beans. If you've been one who likes to harvest and take them to the elevator. Non GMO beans might not be a good fit unless your buyer is willing to take. Them at harvest, and some buyers will they have enough storage, or some buyers will take some but they'll give you a little smaller premium for those beans that you deliver at Fall Harvest. So that would be the second consideration. Thirdly is make sure that you understand that your management may have to
be a little more precise. You know, you may have to be a little more accurate with the timing on herbicides. You may have to be a little bit more concerned about the timing at harvest, because you want to make sure that the quality is there. So attention to detail is going to be more important for you. And then the only other concern is make sure you have a bigger bank account, because you're going to make a little
more money. You may earn it, but you're going to, you're going to experience a little higher income per acre, which is the fun part.
So following up to that, that's kind of the, one of the last things I had on my list of maybe some other things to watch out for. And so I get this question, and I need to follow up on it. But since there's a specialty crop and there's these other traits you want, you know, are there any varieties or classes, I guess you've come across that might have a little bit more risk of crop injury to some of these conventional chemistries that we use.
Rodrigo may have a better answer than this. I don't know if I would say they're riskier from a crop injury standpoint, but certainly we know that not all varieties are, by their very nature, very small seeded bean and they are typically planted at a higher population to make up for that. Consequently, they are a little more susceptible to diseases like white mold. So if white mold is an issue for you, you
might not want to start out with a natto contract. The second thing I'll tell you is that most of these companies that are buying non GMO beans have a pretty good idea which varieties growers to have the best luck with, and they'll tell you. The other way you can tell it is if the if the premium is really, really high on a variety, it's probably really, really high because it's got some nuances that make it a little trickier,
a little more difficult to be successful with. So I always caution guys, don't start out with the one that's got the biggest premium, because that might be the hardest one to be successful with. Leave that to the pros, and then eventually you'll be a pro, and you can try some and figure it out on your own, but, but that, I think, would be good advice,
and that not specifically why I have the question, because you're people are probably sick of hearing Rodrigo, listen, I pushing metribuzin and going with higher rates because it's still a really good tool, and that, that's the one that I'm a general concern for more injury
and to begin with, across any soybean. But you know, the natto growers having that smaller seed are just a little little more precautious about upping the rates on some of these residuals compared to, you know, what they've previously used, just to avoid that early injury. And so we need to actually do the research. And Rodrigo, I don't know if you've tested other ones to see if there are increased sensitivities.
Uh, no, that's a good point. There on the the metribuzin comment you just made Joe, the one thing we do tend to see a lot some varieties are really sensitive to our PPOs, right? We were talking about PPOs as part of the program, so certain varieties that are highly sensitive to either Spartan or Val or sprayed brief, but like Andy said, usually you know the person that's selling you the seed or promoting certain variety. They already have that information that the
growers would have the know how. So, as Andy said, before you dive in, you know, gathering some additional information on the sensitivity of those varieties to either metrobusine or the PPOs, I think, is incredibly important.
Alright, Rodrigo, any concluding thoughts from the weed scientist,
no, I think I really, as I always enjoy, you know, listening to you guys. And then now being part here, to me, is awesome, and having a special guest here, Andy, is even more special. And then, for those of you who might be wondering, I think Andy briefly mentioned that we were together in Brazil, right? So I just want to give a little more information Andy myself and a group of farmers and Wisconsin crop consultants
with Carlo spirit is at North Dakota State University. We spent two weeks in Brazil, right, Andy in February, and we had a chance to tour around. So if you're wondering why Andy was talking about that, because we were we traveled together for a couple weeks there, and then those were very, very special weeks, because we got to see a lot of Brazilian agriculture,
but we also formed some amazing friendships. And that's why, you know, I just, you know, like when Joe reached out to me to talk about the podcast, it's like, I know exactly who I'm going to call here, and Andy, because of our good relationship here, he's, he, you know, he just made the time to be here with us today. So it's, it's a big community. And small community at the same time, and I think we're always learning
from each other. And I just want to, you know, commend you guys on what you're doing, because you know, you know, fostering is ability of folks to exchange experience. This is what agriculture is all all about. So just sharing our, you know, knowledge and helping one another, it's how we keep moving this thing forward. So thank you guys. Ah, so much for having me again.
If you ever go to Brazil with Rodrigo, just know that he's worth his weight in gold because he speaks the language and so those of us who can't utter their first syllable of Portuguese, to be able to have guys like Carlos and Rodrigo along, that just made it awesome. It really was a
wonderful opportunity. And if you ever get the chance to visit to see what our neighbors to the south are dealing with and their production challenges, some things are exactly the same as we struggle with here, but some things are completely different. It really helps you to think outside the box when you see what production methods look like and the scale that they happen in other parts of the world. So thanks for the opportunity Rodrigo, to travel with you. It was great.
That's something we tell every undergrad who complains about, why do I have to learn Latin names of weeds? Because someday you want an international trip, and it's a lot easier to communicate when you know the Latin name, when you go to different countries. So we should, what we should do is then, Andy, want to make sure you have any, you know, final thoughts about, you know, just non GMO soybean, or anything that popped in your head that you'd like to cover here before we conclude, I'd
like to put a plug in for the soybean Checkoff Program as a as an institution. You know, every bushel of soybeans that's marketed pays into the soybean check off program one half of 1% half of that money stays with your local state organization, and half of it goes on to the United Soybean
Board, and that money is the farmers money. I serve on the marketing board here in Wisconsin, and as a board, we take our responsibilities very seriously, and that is to give the farmers a return on that investment to things that either make their production more profitable, that build markets for them as exports to create new uses like tires and tennis
shoes and firefighter foam. But all of those things that are are invested in and our biggest partners, usually on the production side, are university extension researchers, of which we recognize folks like Rodrigo and Dr Sean Conley and the whole list of them, I think every state I'm guessing, the list
that you plug into that somewhere in Ohio. But it's really a wonderful program, and the wisdom that was instilled in that check off program at its early inception that allowed it to go well beyond inflation measures, because the half of 1% goes up and down in value at the value the bean does compared to. And I don't like to pick on corn, but our corn growers in Wisconsin are stuck at a flat numeric number, and so as corn get to be worth more money, that number for corn doesn't change.
It only changes when the production increases. So there was a lot of wisdom back many, many years ago, when when this program was started. And I know there are some farmers that think it's a total waste that that money they would rather have in their wallets, I understand the desire to have more money in your wallet. Well, then grow some non GMO beans, but don't take the check off away, because it's like taking the the semen tank away from a dairy breeder. I mean, that's
his future. That's where the investments are made to increase the profitability of the crop we grow. And there is, you know that that's not government money. That's not That's not money that comes from the general coffers. That's money that people who grow the soybeans invest back to make sure that they have better markets, that they have more efficient production, that they have new technologies, that they have new varieties, and they have new products all the time
being developed. I just can't say enough good about Joel. That's my plug.
I love it. I think I can speak for Rodrigo and Melissa and myself, that we take those check off funded projects very seriously at the state and regional and national level. So say we certainly try to do the best we can. And like I said, take that seriously, because we know how important that that money and that research is.
us, supporting us. So thank you so much. Yep,
and then, before we fully send this out So always like to give guests a chance to pitch if they want to be found, where we can find them, either on social media or websites. And so, Rodrigo, I know you've got a website in social media, so I'll start with you.
Yeah, thanks, Joe. So wiscweeds.info is our website. And then for folks that are on, you know, Twitter or X @WiscWeeds
All right, then, Andy, if you wish to be found. If not, that's perfectly fine.
It's Wisoybean.org but our soybean extension specialist likes to use his coolbean.info I think that's still a good website. We enjoy poking a lot of fun at some of our researchers in just just to make, make, make light of some serious issues sometimes, but we really have a great working relationship with our researchers here at the University of Wisconsin. Wisconsin is 13th in total soybean production, if I'm not mistaken by states, and if I'm not mistaken, is North Dakota number two
always varies by year, but acres are usually around four. It's certainly top five and and then production. We're not quite two because some of our some of our acres at West don't have the yield per acre basis
or up there? Yeah, you're in the top five. I knew that for sure. So historically, you know you were not even a soybean producing state. So talk about a remarkable transition from what was 50 years ago and what you are today. Well, it
still surprises people when I say between six and 7 million acres is kind of our average for soybean acres, and every every time it surprises people. So yeah, and that's all because of research and a lot of effort in the whole soybean industry. So it's certainly been a great benefit for the North Dakota economy. But with that, I do want to thank Rodrigo, thank you for coming on again. Andy, thank you very much wonderful, wonderful having you on and kind of loved
hearing your experiences as always. We thank the listeners for tuning in, and please tune in next week for another war against weeds podcast. As always, we thank you for listening to the war against weeds podcast. Just another reminder, you can find our podcast hosted on the Crop Protection Network, or CPN, for short. So this is another great resource that's driven by extension, scientists at different universities for pest management. And with that, we will see you next week on the
war against weeds podcast. You.