Happy Friday! Next week marks the first day of fall and it feels like we’re finally in the homestretch of the 2019 growing season. The fields that were planted in April and May are quickly changing from green to yellow and brown, signaling that the crop is drying down and it’s nearly time for harvest. Our fields still have a few weeks to go, but we’re starting to see signs that they’re nearing maturity.
9/20/19 Update:
Cover Crop Soybeans (126 Days)
126 days. That’s a little over four months. I can’t believe that it’s already been that long and that summer is coming to a close. Not that I’m complaining or anything – fall is my favorite season!
Like I’ve mentioned before, this is the soybean field to watch as we think about getting started with harvest. These soybeans are a 3.8 maturity group. Our shortest maturity group is a 3.6 and our longest is a 3.9. Think of it like hardiness zones like you might see on a plant from the greenhouse. You want plants that are going to survive in your region based on the average length of the growing season. We wouldn’t want to grow soybeans that are in a maturity group of 7 or 8 like they might grow in Louisiana because we don’t plant as early as they do and our first frost comes long before theirs might, which is why they want a longer maturity group – they have the time to allow the plant to grow. If we planted a 7 or 8 here in Central Illinois, the plant would grow, but the frost would probably kill it before any of the soybeans were mature in the pod. On the other hand, we also don’t want a 0 or 00 maturity group like a farmer in Northern Minnesota might select since our growing season is a bit longer than theirs. If we planted a 0 or 00 in Central Illinois, the plant would also grow, but it would mature really early and we would feel that we missed out on potential yield since the plant didn’t take advantage of the full growing season. Does that kind of make sense? There is some flexibility with maturity groups – around us, most farmers are probably going to pick a 3 or a 4 based on what we know to be our approximate frost dates and how early we’re able to get into the field in the spring.
So going back to our shortest and longest maturity groups. We planted soybeans that were 3.6, 3.8, and 3.9. If it was a perfect world and the soybeans were all planted in one day, we would expect that the 3.6 beans would mature a few to several days earlier than the 3.8 or 3.9 beans. However, I know that the 3.8 beans (these) were planted a good three weeks before the 3.6 beans (the other field profiled at the bottom of this post), so that tells me that these beans will probably be ready first with the three-week advantage, but the 3.6 beans will probably be ready less than three weeks after this field since they needed fewer days to mature to begin with. Still with me?
Anyway, I’m excited because this field is finally starting to show signs of the home stretch. See those yellow leaves and bending stems? The yellow leaves naturally occurs as the plant dies and the stems always bend a little under the weight of the soybean pods.
See how nice and plump this soybean pod is? The plants are loaded with them. A very good sign of a productive year. Also kind of heavy for the thin stems of a soybean plant.
See the difference between the leaves beginning to yellow in the center and right side of the photo and the leaves that are still green on the left side? We’ll see lots of color change here in next week’s update!
Check out all of these beautiful, plump soybean pods. 🙂
Corn (108 days)
Like soybeans, seed corn is also sold by maturity. Unlike soybeans, which we know are rated by maturity groups, corn has a “day” rating, also called “relative maturity”. This corn is a 113-day corn. The first time you hear that, it would be natural to think that the corn will mature 113 days after planting. Because life is complicated, that’s not the real answer.
Remember when we talked about Growing Degree Days? Yeah, those aren’t the same as relative maturity either. What matters to you today is to know corn with a higher number of days to relative maturity (like 113) means that it’ll take longer to mature and dry down than a, say, 107-day corn if they were planted on the exact same day and experienced the exact same conditions. Generally, we have an idea of what relative maturity we need here in Central Illinois to allow the corn enough time to mature before the first frost but still maximize the growing days we have in the season. (The books we get with seed options for the year from the seed dealer are tailored to your region – we’re not going to get a lot of options that would be best suited to Northern Wisconsin, for example). As you go north, that number would go down and as you go south that number might go up. With delayed planting this spring, some farmers around here chose to switch to a corn hybrid with a smaller number to make sure the corn would still have time to mature before the first frost. Make sense?
The corn field is showing signs of reaching the home stretch of the growing season, too. In the first photo, you might have noticed that the tassels are no longer standing upright. The leaves towards the bottom of the plants have also begun to dry out.
There are signs of the plant drying out around the ear, too. And more dented kernels inside (unlike cans at the grocery store, another good sign we’re nearing harvest!)
The next sign I’m looking for in this field is for the corn to “drop” the ear. Essentially, the ear will move from an upright position to pointing downwards. The plant does this to reduce the potential for rain or moisture to get into the mature ear and cause the kernels to spoil. The leaves around the ear that’s pointed down create a natural umbrella, if you will, which sheds moisture and keeps rain from getting inside the ear.
No-till soybeans (104 days)
I talked about this field a little bit earlier already, but see how the soybean pods are starting to look plump? These pods are slightly less plump than the other field, but I expect them to fill out quickly knowing that this field is just a few days behind the other field in terms of maturity.
A few yellow leaves in this field, too. Hopefully not too long before harvest officially begins here!