Follow the Field Update #11

Happy Friday! Still not much happening in the fields as we start thinking about preparing for harvest. It was a late spring, so it’ll be a few weeks before crops will be ready to go anyway. In the meantime, here’s the weekly #FollowtheField update!

9/6/19 Update:

Cover Crop Soybeans (112 Days)

Check out all of those beans! So far, it appears that these soybeans are doing pretty well, which is reassuring after planting into a green and very tall cover crop this spring. Like I mentioned a few times this summer, there were very few weeds in this field because of the straw left over from the cover crop, so extra bonus.

 

Corn (94 Days)

Recognize that? That’s an ear of corn split in half. You can see the cob in the center and the developing kernels all the way around. This ear happened to have 20 kernels around, which is relatively average. Did you know that ears of corn will always have an even number of rows of kernels?

If you look closely, you can see a defined line between the yellow and white on the kernels. That’s the milk layer, which means that this corn is definitely in the dough stage (remember, stages are a measurement of maturity, or the plant’s growth stage). Scroll down a few images and you’ll see that dents are beginning to form on the kernels, hence why it’s called dent corn. 🙂 This field is in the dough stage, but beginning the transition to the dent stage. The next stage will be maturity, which is when a black layer will form on the end of the kernel, effectively sealing the kernel off from the plant. After that, we’ll know that harvest is getting closer.

Here’s a closer view of the ear and a couple of kernels I pulled out. There’s plenty of moisture in them now (about 60-70%), but not as much as sweet corn would have at this point and way too much for harvest. They’ll continue to dry down as they reach maturity. We usually aim to harvest when corn is around 22-24% moisture and then will dry it to about 15% at the elevator for storage. More on that later. See how each kernel is connected to the ear?

And here are the dents I was talking about earlier. The smooth kernels will all form a dent as the kernel continues to develop and eventually reach maturity.

 

No-Till Soybeans (90 Days)

Compare the two pictures above. Can you tell how the bean pod in the bottom photo is slightly wider than the bean pod in the photo above it? The bottom photo is a bean pod on the bottom, which is a little further along in development than the bean pod at the top of the plant, which is in the top photo. Still a long ways to go before maturity, though!

Look at all of those beautiful pods on these bean plants! I’m really excited about the 4-bean pods.

That’s all for this week. Have a great weekend, everybody!